Dennis Haskins, the actor who played Principal Richard Belding on Saved by the Bell, died on Sunday, September 27, in Burbank, California. He was 75. His longtime agent, Jay Schachter, announced the death on Monday, and no cause of death has been released.
Since then, the people closest to Haskins have revealed that he spent his last years quietly living with Parkinson’s disease, and that he chose to keep it almost entirely to himself.
Dennis Haskins kept his illness out of view
The news came first from Dimples, a karaoke bar in Burbank where Haskins was a regular. In an Instagram post, the bar said he had been ill for about eight years and had stayed silent about Parkinson’s and other health problems because he didn’t want the attention. Talking about it wasn’t something he wanted to do. As he put it to friends, “What do I even say?”
Kimberly Snow, his friend and caretaker, confirmed to reporters that Haskins was diagnosed with Parkinson’s eight years ago and had been living in an assisted living facility. Snow once managed Dimples and helped look after Haskins as his health declined.
His ex-wife, Sarah Quinones, told TMZ that he went further than simply keeping quiet. He stopped returning calls and texts from her and from friends who wanted to know how he was doing.
The principal a generation grew up with
For millions of viewers who grew up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Haskins was Mr. Belding, the well-meaning, slightly hapless principal of Bayside High. He first played the role in 1988 on the Disney Channel’s Good Morning, Miss Bliss. The following year, the show was retooled into Saved by the Bell on NBC.
He stayed with the series from its first episode to its last, appearing in close to 90 episodes alongside Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Elizabeth Berkley, Lark Voorhies and Dustin Diamond. He brought Belding back for Saved by the Bell: The New Class, and his “Hey, hey, hey” greeting became one of the most quoted lines in 1990s TV. He did not appear in the 2020 revival.
His career stretched well beyond Bayside. He made his screen debut in 1979 on The Dukes of Hazzard and later turned up in Magnum, P.I., It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the film A Million Ways to Die in the West.
From Chattanooga to the USO
Haskins was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1950. He went to the city’s Notre Dame High School and then to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. At UTC he was involved in everything: the school newspaper, the drama club and student government. As entertainment chairman of the student government, he helped bring Ike and Tina Turner to campus in April 1973.
He was also a musician. In 2000 he toured with the USO to entertain troops in Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia, and in 2002 he went back out to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Oman and Kyrgyzstan.
UTC honored him in 2000 as one of its most distinguished alumni.
Tributes from Bayside
His former castmates have been quick to remember him. Mario Lopez said he was heartbroken to lose an old friend and recalled that Haskins may have played the principal, but “Dennis was the biggest kid on the SBTB set.” Lark Voorhies said he would always hold a special place in her heart and that she would miss his warmth and laughter.
Schachter, who represented Haskins for more than 20 years and called him a dear friend, said the actor absolutely loved his fans. “He always had time for them, no matter what,” he said.
Haskins is survived by his son, Dustin.
Friends at Dimples say he is now at peace and “probably entertaining the people in the sky.” They also had a message for fans who reached out to him in recent years and never heard back: their messages did reach him.
