Carl Kasell to retire from NPR’s ‘Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!’
Carl Kasell, sober-voiced radio newsman-turned-comic foil, will retire from his role as official judge and scorekeeper of the hit NPR comedy-quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”
Kasell, a former NPR “Morning Edition” newsreader who turns 80 in April, told The Two-Way, NPR’s in-house blog, that the Chicago-based show made him “the luckiest man around to be able to have worked at a job I love for so many years.” Kasell will continue to make occasional appearances as the show’s Scorekeeper Emeritus.
The retirement as regular weekly show personality will come “this spring” after proper farewell shows, in Chicago or Kasell’s home of Washington, D.C., or both, said show host Peter Sagal.
Kasell was ill and off the show for about six weeks last May and June, and the show’s regular tapings at Chicago’s Chase Bank Auditorium and in other cities have required him to fly to the destinations most every week.
The retirement will give Sagal and his producers a chance to re-examine the role of announcer and scorekeeper, in part “because it would be stupid to try to replace Carl,” Sagal said. “There’s been this huge part of the show built on the immense gravitas of this guy, and we’ve gotten huge mileage out of making this guy do funny things.”
Now Chenoweth can catch her breath
Kristin Chenoweth is ready to tell the world she suffers from asthma. The Tony Award-winning actress with the powerful voice says she’s suffered with the respiratory disorder for more than a decade.
“I haven’t really discussed the fact that I do suffer from asthma,” Chenoweth told the Associated Press. “I kept getting sick and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get my breath. … That’s kind of my asthma journey, if you will.”
But Chenoweth was not correctly diagnosed for a few years. The entire time she did the smash Broadway musical, “Wicked,” when she originated the role of Glinda, she thought she was suffering from bronchitis and other respiratory issues.
“It was only after going to L.A. to do ‘Bewitched,’ and ‘The West Wing’ that I really got sick. But I wasn’t diagnosed with asthma,” Chenoweth recalls. “It wasn’t until I was doing the television series, ‘Pushing Daisies,’ that my doctor in Oklahoma diagnosed me.”
Her doctor told her she needed to carry an inhaler at all times so she could breathe. That diagnosis has changed her life, as well as affecting her confidence.
The birthday bunch
Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is 87. Actress-writer Joanna Miles is 74. Actor Ben Murphy is 72. Opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is 70. Singer Mary Wilson (The Supremes) is 70. Rock singer-musician David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) is 68. Actor-director Rob Reiner is 67. Singer Kiki Dee is 67. Actor Tom Arnold is 55. Actress Connie Britton is 47. NBA player Shaquille O’Neal is 42.