'Saved by the Bell' Star Dustin Diamond Dies at Age 44
by EG
Saved by the Bell star Dustin Diamond has died at the age 44 after a battle with cancer. He is known primarily for his role on the long-running sitcom. He gained some notoriety more recently for starring in a sex tape and participating in other attention-grabbing stunts. Read on for details.
Dustin Diamond, who spent 13 seasons as the goofy nerd Screech on the Saturday morning sitcom Saved by the Bell and its various iterations before his life and career took a turn for the worse, has died. He was 44.
Diamond died Monday, his rep told TMZ. The actor was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and was receiving treatments at an undisclosed Florida hospital in mid-January, his manager said.
When he was 11 and in the fifth grade, Diamond beat out 5,000 other hopefuls in 1988 to land the role of Samuel "Screech" Powers on the Disney Channel comedy Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the forerunner to Saved by the Bell.
Viewers watched Diamond grow up before their eyes as he continued as the chess-loving Screech on Saved by the Bell, which lasted four seasons (1989-93), Saved by the Bell: The College Years (one primetime season, 1993-94) and Saved by the Bell: The New Class (seven seasons, 1994-2000), all on NBC. When the last episode aired, Diamond was 23.
"The hardest thing about being a child star is giving up your childhood. You don't get a childhood, really," he said in a Where Are They Now? interview for OWN in 2013. "You're a performer, you have to know your lines and rehearse and practice, making sure you are the funniest and the best you can be. Because if you weren't funny, you could be replaced."
In the ensuing years, Diamond began a new career as a stand-up comic (he said he had been favorably compared to George Carlin); beat up a much older Ron Palillo (Arnold Horshack of Welcome Back, Kotter) on Celebrity Boxing 2; shed some pounds on Celebrity Fit Club; entered the ring with Dennis Rodman and Frank Stallone on Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling; and appeared on World's Dumbest and Celebrity Big Brother.
In 2006, Diamond was behind Screeched — Saved by the Smell, a 52-minute sex tape that involved him and two women. Later, he said that a "stunt person" stood in for him, with his face added during editing.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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