Dustin Diamond, best known as Screech from ‘Saved By the Bell,’ dies at 44

TMZ, the first outlet to report the news, reported several weeks ago that Diamond was hospitalized in Florida after feeling pain, and two days later, a representative told Entertainment Weekly that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.

Diamond was familiar to a generation of fans as Samuel “Screech” Powers, the wacky pal of Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) on “Saved by the Bell,” the extremely popular high school comedy that ran on NBC from 1989 through 1993. He played the geek, the weirdo, the one who clearly didn’t fit in with the cool kids of Bayside High, yet they accepted him in their circle anyway. He might have been the token nerd, but for the legions of kids who ran to the TV when they heard the school bell signal the show’s theme song, he was a beloved member of the group.

He appeared for 13 years total on the franchise, which also included a predecessor, “Good Morning, Miss Bliss,” followed by “Saved By the Bell: The College Years" and spin-off “Saved by the Bell: The New Class.” Afterward, Diamond made the reality television rounds for ’90s TV stars, including stints on “Celebrity Fit Club,” “Celebrity Boxing 2” and “Celebrity Big Brother.”

Diamond also struggled to adjust after years of teenage fame. He was barely a pre-teen when he was cast on “Good Morning, Miss Bliss,” and when the show was revamped as “Saved by the Bell,” he was younger than most of the other tightly-knit cast members, making it hard to bond in real life on set.

“The hardest thing about being a child star is giving up your childhood,” Diamond said in a 2013 interview with HuffPost. “You don’t get a childhood, really. You’re a professional and you got to know your lines and rehearse and practice."

He further distanced himself from his cast mates who were not pleased by his 2009 memoir, “Behind the Bell,” which detailed a dysfunctional environment on set. (Diamond later said his ghost writer turned his thoughts into “trash-talking," which was not his intention.)

His public issues included filming a sex tape in 2006, although he later revealed that he used a stunt double. He also spent three weeks in jail in 2016 after getting into a bar fight in Wisconsin. In an interview shortly after his time in jail, he told his former “Saved by the Bell” co-star Mario Lopez on “Extra” that he wanted a fresh start: "I want to put the tomfoolery and malarkey behind me … for that clean slate. Time for a change.”

Paul, his talent agent, acknowledged Diamond’s problematic past. “We are aware that Dustin is not considered reputable by most. He’s had a history of mishaps, of unfortunate events. We want the public to understand that he was not intentionally malevolent. He — much like the rest of those who act out and behave poorly — had undergone a great deal of turmoil and heartache,” he said in his statement. “His actions, though rebukeable, stemmed from loss and the lack of knowledge on how to process that pain properly. In actuality, Dustin was a humorous and high-spirited individual whose greatest passion was to make others laugh. He was able to sense and feel other peoples’ emotions to such a length that he was able to feel them too—a strength and a flaw, all in one.”