Dennis Haskins of Saved by the Bell Dies at 75

Dennis Haskins, the actor who played Principal Richard Belding on Saved by the Bell, died Sunday night in Burbank at 75.

Kimberly Snow, his friend and longtime caretaker, said he died around 11 p.m. on Sept. 27, 2026, in an assisted living facility. She said he had lived with Parkinson’s disease for about eight years and had asked her to keep that fight quiet.

The Karaoke Bar That Thought He Owned It

The person who spoke from the room where he died was not a Bayside classmate. Snow, a former manager of Dimples Karaoke in Burbank, wrote that Haskins was such a fixture there that regulars assumed the place was his.

A lot of people thought he owned it, but he didn’t. He just loved the place and its people. He enjoyed singing for people, meeting them, and taking selfies with his fans. Dimples closed down about 11 years ago, and people still associate him with his beloved ‘second home.’ He was known to most as Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell, but to us, he was much more than that.

Kimberly Snow, friend and caretaker, on Instagram

That bar is the part of his public life the reunion machine never filmed. Mario Lopez, who played A.C. Slater, reached for the same detail as soon as the news moved, writing that karaoke meant Haskins on the mic. The principal on Saturday morning was, off camera, the man who wanted another song.

Snow also handled the quieter traffic of the last years, the texts and voicemails from people who still wanted Mr. Belding on the line. She wrote that she read those messages to him. The fans who thought they had been ignored had not been, at least not in that room.

His Agent Talked About the Autograph Line

Jay Schachter, head of film and television for Stewart Talent in New York, announced the death on Monday, Sept. 28. He had represented Haskins for over 20 years and called him a dear friend.

“It’s a tragic loss,” Schachter said. “Everyone loved Mr. Belding, and those of us who got to know Dennis loved him even more. He was a great person, and he loved, I mean absolutely LOVED his fans. He always had time for them, no matter what.” He added that he was heartbroken.

That order of grief is the obituary the credits would not have written. Schachter did not open with a ratings figure or a spinoff. He opened with the people who queued for a photo and a “Hey, hey, hey.” For a working actor whose face froze in 1990s syndication, those lines were the job that never wrapped.

On X, the first reflex was the catchphrase and a joke about Screech. Dustin Diamond, who played Samuel “Screech” Powers, died in 2021 at 44 from lung cancer. Haskins is the second original-cast death, and the pairing came fast, because Bayside in the public mind is still a group of kids plus one adult who never quite caught them.

Principal Belding Ran From 1988 to 2000

Haskins first played Richard Belding on the Disney Channel’s Good Morning, Miss Bliss in 1988. After one season the show was retooled as NBC’s Saved by the Bell, which ran four seasons from 1989 to 1993. He was the only adult in the regular cast, charged with chasing Zack Morris and the rest of Bayside High, often with the line “Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?”

He kept the character going long after the original kids graduated off the call sheet. Saved by the Bell: The New Class ran from 1993 to 2000, and he stayed for the full run. He also turned up as Belding in the TV movies Hawaiian Style in 1992 and Wedding in Las Vegas in 1994, and as a guest on Saved by the Bell: The College Years in 1993. Counted that way, the role lasted 12 years, from 1988 to 2000, which is longer than most of the students were on television.

BELDING ON THE CLOCK

He later put the same principal on Robot Chicken and Victorious, and in February 2015 he wore the jacket again for a sketch on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Lopez, and Tiffani Thiessen. When Peacock revived Saved by the Bell in 2020 for two seasons, several of those original students came back. Haskins did not. Belding had already been written out of California.

He Mailed Bayside Back to Chattanooga

Dennis Button Haskins IV was born Nov. 18, 1950, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, one of three boys. He went to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Notre Dame High School, then the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where campus life stuck harder than a diploma did.

HOW CHATTANOOGA KEPT SHOWING UP

• The student: He wrote for the campus paper, acted in the Drama Club, helped found the Harlequins community theater group, and played basketball for a year.
• The unfinished degree: He left in the 1970s short of graduation requirements, worked in music, then came back and collected a bachelor’s in theater in December 2015, at 65.
• The honor first: UTC named him Distinguished Alumnus in 2000, 15 years before he walked at commencement, and a high school academic contest there still carries his name.
• The plot gift: When the original series ended its four-year run, the finale sent Belding to UTC as dean of students, a hometown joke that doubled as a thank-you.

Before the sitcom he worked as a music manager and promoter, with Tom Jones and Gregg Allman among the clients in his career notes. He reached television in 1979 on The Dukes of Hazzard, then stacked guest parts through the 1980s on shows such as Magnum, P.I. and The Twilight Zone. Miss Bliss was the first role that came back every week.

He never treated Bayside as a costume he could donate and forget. In 2015 he gave UTC his working scripts and a Belding suit, a special-collections gift that covers Good Morning, Miss Bliss and Saved by the Bell from 1988 to 1992, including revisions, shooting schedules, and scene outlines. An exhibit of that material opened on campus in spring 2016.

In a university alumni profile he sounded like a man who knew exactly which credit would outlive him. He called Saved by the Bell a show that reached over 87 countries, a Saturday-morning run he said no other show in that slot had matched, and he was proud to have been there from the first episode to the last.

So many people recognize me as Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell, a show that started out on Saturday mornings and eventually went to over 87 countries. It’s a phenomenon that has not been matched by any other Saturday morning TV show. For many years it’s been the show of a generation, and I am proud to have been there from the very first episode to the last.

Dennis Haskins, actor, in a University of Tennessee alumni profile

He also went out on USO tours in 2000 through Kosovo, Macedonia, and Bosnia, and again in 2002 through Afghanistan, Pakistan, Oman, and Kyrgyzstan. He flew with the Blue Angels. The principal who never left Bayside in syndication kept finding stages that were not a soundstage.

What the Bayside Cast Said After Monday

Lark Voorhies, who played Lisa Turtle, wrote that knowing Haskins for almost 40 years had been one of the truest blessings of her life, which made losing him hurt so deeply. She called him a fabulous person, a loyal friend, and someone with a kind, gentle heart, and said she would miss his warmth and laughter more than words could say.

Tiffani Thiessen, who played Kelly Kapowski, wrote that Haskins had been a steady presence in her teenage years, “the kind of figure who kept us in line while making sure we knew he was in our corner.” She said she would always remember his kindness. “RIP Mr. B,” she added.

He played the principal, but Dennis was the biggest kid on the SBTB set.

Mario Lopez, actor, on X

Lopez, posting as @mariolopezviva, said he was heartbroken about an old friend, grateful for the laughs and the years of friendship, and sure that if you knew Haskins you loved him. He signed off by placing him in the Bayside family. The karaoke line sat in the same post, which is how the on-set memory and the Burbank bar memory folded into one person.

Gosselaar and Berkley had not, in the first day of tributes, put out public statements of their own. The silence did not rewrite the work. It only showed that the loudest goodbyes came from the people who had kept him as a friend after the show stopped needing a principal.

Parkinson’s Stayed a Private Fight

After the jacket came off, Haskins kept taking small parts that could not compete with syndication. He turned up on Mad Men, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, New Girl, Hot in Cleveland, How I Met Your Mother, and the Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here, and he played a snake-oil salesman in Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West in 2014. The last acting credit on his file is the 2020 TV movie A Bennett Song Holiday.

None of that reset the search results. People still wanted Belding. Snow said that about eight years before his death he became ill, moved into assisted living, and chose not to explain Parkinson’s to the strangers who still saw a sitcom principal. “What do I even say?” she recalled him asking. She respected the request and stayed quiet.

Parkinson’s is a progressive movement disorder, and a federal briefing on Parkinson’s disease lays out the symptoms, the diagnosis, and the therapies now in use. Snow said he did not want the attention that would have come with attaching that word to Mr. Belding. Other health problems sat beside it. She did not list them, and no coroner has filled the gap.

THE LAST PUBLIC CHAPTER

1. February 2015: Reprises Belding on The Tonight Show with four original castmates.
2. December 2015: Collects his UTC theater degree and donates the script collection.
3. September 27, 2026: Dies around 11 p.m. in a Burbank assisted living facility, at 75.

Between the diploma and the death, the cameras mostly stopped. The Peacock revival went on without him. The karaoke bar was already closed. What remained was the assisted living hallway, Snow, and the messages she kept reading aloud.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Dennis Haskins appear in the 2020 Saved by the Bell reboot?

No. Peacock’s revival ran two seasons and brought back Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkley, and Tiffani Thiessen as their original characters, now adults. Haskins was not in the cast. The original NBC series had already sent Belding to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as dean of students, and the new show left that office in the past.

Did Dennis Haskins finish college?

Yes, decades late. He left the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the 1970s short of his requirements, then completed a bachelor’s degree in theater in December 2015, at 65. UTC had already named him Distinguished Alumnus in 2000, so the honor arrived 15 years before the diploma.

What work did Dennis Haskins do before Saved by the Bell?

He spent the 1970s in the music business as a manager, booking agent, and concert promoter, with Tom Jones and Gregg Allman among the artists attached to that stretch. His early television jobs were one-off parts, including The Dukes of Hazzard in 1979, before Good Morning, Miss Bliss in 1988 became his first recurring role.

Where are Dennis Haskins’s Saved by the Bell scripts now?

They sit in special collections at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, donated by Haskins in 2015. The file covers Good Morning, Miss Bliss and Saved by the Bell from 1988 to 1992, with multiple draft versions, rehearsal schedules, and set notes, and it includes a suit he wore as Mr. Belding. The collection is open for research.

How long did Dennis Haskins play Principal Belding?

He played the character from 1988 through 2000 across Good Morning, Miss Bliss, Saved by the Bell, The College Years, The New Class, and two TV movies, a 12-year run. He later revived Belding on Robot Chicken, Victorious, and a February 2015 Tonight Show sketch, which means the principal outlived the original Saturday-morning slot by more than a decade.

An official cause of death has not been released. Haskins is survived by a son, Dustin, and a younger brother. Snow wrote that if you tried to reach him in the last few years, she read your messages, and you were heard.