Adored '90s Sitcom Star Gone at 75

Dennis Haskins, the actor who played Bayside High Principal Richard Belding on "Saved by the Bell," died Sunday in Burbank, California. He was 75.

His longtime agent, Jay Schachter, confirmed the death to Variety. Haskins had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease eight years ago. No cause of death has been announced.

"It's a tragic loss," Schachter said in a statement. "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 was my client and dear friend for over 20 years, and I will miss him terribly. I'm heartbroken."

Schachter is head of film and television for Stewart Talent in New York City. Haskins is survived by his son, Dustin, and a younger brother.

It took him seven auditions to become Mr. Belding

The role that defined Haskins for millions of kids almost went to someone else. He told Parade in 2013 that landing the part was a grind, and that nobody involved thought they were making television history.

"On Good Morning, Miss Bliss, I was just glad to have a job. It was a long seven-audition process," he said. "I was in. I was out. And then, finally at the last minute, I got it. We were just happy to be working. We weren't thinking in terms of how long we were going to go."

"Good Morning, Miss Bliss" aired on the Disney Channel in 1988, with Haskins opposite Hayley Mills. After one season, the show was retooled for NBC as "Saved by the Bell." Haskins carried Belding over with it.

He appeared in all 86 episodes of the original show

Haskins appeared in all 86 episodes, according to TMZ. The original series ran on NBC for four seasons, from 1989 to 1993.

Belding's job on the page was simple: stop Zack Morris, A.C. Slater and Screech Powers from getting away with whatever they were getting away with. He almost never did. His catchphrase, "Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?", arrived roughly the moment a scheme was falling apart.

The series centered on students at the fictional Bayside High in Southern California, and it borrowed a page from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" in that the school often looked like it was run more by the teenagers than by their hapless principal. The show was both mocked and embraced for its zany plots.

Haskins played opposite Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Lopez, Thiessen, Elizabeth Berkley, Lark Voorhies and the late Dustin Diamond. Ed Alonzo was also part of the cast.

Belding stayed at Bayside until 2000

When the original cast graduated, Haskins stayed on campus. He returned as Belding for "Saved by the Bell: The New Class" in 1993 and played the character for seven more seasons, through the show's finale in 2000. The spinoff aired Saturday mornings on NBC.

He also played Belding in the TV movie "Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style." Counting "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" at the front end, that is more than a decade inside the same principal's office, across two networks and a string of rebrands.

The math is unusual for a supporting player on a teen sitcom. Kids who were in grade school when Haskins first put on the tie were adults by the time he took it off, and plenty of them met him as the only principal they ever liked.

Mario Lopez remembered the karaoke

Lopez, who played A.C. Slater, posted a tribute describing Haskins as the loosest person on a set full of teenagers. "He played the principal, but Dennis was the biggest kid on the SBTB set," he wrote. "If you knew him, you loved him, and if there was karaoke, you knew Dennis was getting on that mic!"

Lopez closed by calling Haskins part of "our Bayside family" and thanking him for the laughs and the friendship. He also posted a photo of the two of them from a visit to his radio show, "On Air with Mario Lopez," captioned "RIP Dennis Haskins. Everyone's favorite principal!"

Thiessen, who played Kelly Kapowski, wrote on Instagram that Haskins was "a steady presence in my teenage years, the kind of figure who kept us in line while making sure we knew he was in our corner." She signed off, "RIP Mr. B."

Voorhies, 52, who played Lisa Turtle, posted her tribute Monday evening. "Knowing Dennis Haskins for almost 40 years has been one of the truest blessings of my life, which makes losing him hurt so deeply," she wrote in an Instagram post.

"We shared so much history together from our earliest days, and through it all, he remained a fabulous person, a loyal friend, and someone with such a kind, gentle heart," Voorhies added. She said she would miss his warmth and his laughter more than words could say.

A Burbank karaoke bar called him a staple

Dimples, a karaoke bar in Burbank, California, posted its own tribute on Instagram. Haskins was a regular there for years, and regulars there had a theory about him.

"Dennis was a staple at Dimples. A lot of people thought he owned it, but he didn't. He just loved the place and its people," the post read. "He enjoyed singing for people, meeting them, and taking selfies with his fans."

The bar closed about 11 years ago and people still connect him to it. "He was known to most as Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell, but to us, he was much more than that," the post said, calling the place his beloved second home.

The tribute also had a note for anyone who had written to him recently. "Late last night, that journey ended for him. He is now at peace and is probably entertaining the people in the sky. Just know that if you tried to reach out to him in the last few years, I did read your messages to him, and you were heard."

Before Hollywood, he booked Tom Jones and Gregg Allman

Haskins was born Nov. 18, 1950, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and grew up there. He attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he reported for the student newspaper, acted in campus productions and was a founding member of a community theater group called the Harlequins, according to his university biography.

His first career was in music, not acting. He worked as a music manager, agent and concert promoter, and his clients included Tom Jones and Gregg Allman, according to his IMDb biography. The karaoke habit had a paper trail behind it.

He made his screen debut in 1979 on "The Dukes of Hazzard," then picked up guest spots on "Magnum, P.I." and "The Twilight Zone." Then came the seven auditions, the Disney Channel, and more than a decade of telling teenagers to get to class.

He kept working for decades after the bell

Haskins built a long list of guest credits after Bayside. Among them: "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper," "The Practice," "JAG," "The West Wing," "7th Heaven," "The Bold and the Beautiful," "Victorious," "Mad Men," "How I Met Your Mother," "Men of a Certain Age," "New Girl," "Hot in Cleveland," "Bill Nye Saves the World" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

His film and other screen work included "A Million Ways to Die in the West," "A Bennett Song Holiday," "Trailer Park Shark," "Abstruse" and "Jennifer Falls." The range runs from prestige cable to a movie with a shark in a trailer park, which is its own kind of résumé.

Fans kept showing up for him anyway. On May 1, 2018, he posed for portraits at the "Saved By the Max" pop-up in West Hollywood, a recreation of the Bayside hangout.

What has not been released

The cause and manner of death were unavailable when the news broke. Schachter announced the death Monday night, and no medical details have been made public since. It has not been established what role, if any, his Parkinson's diagnosis played.

That silence tracks with how he handled it. He did not publicize the diagnosis while he was living with it, and it became public only after his death.

What his representative wanted on the record was simpler. Haskins loved the people who recognized him, Schachter said, and he always had time for them, no matter what.