\n\tDennis Haskins, who for more than a decade\u00a0played the lovable\u00a0but stern\u00a0Principal Richard Belding on Saved by the Bell,\u00a0has died, his agent, Jay Schachter, announced in a statement. He was 75.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a tragic loss. Everyone loved Mr. Belding, and those of us who got to know Dennis loved him even more,\u201d Schachter said. \u201cHe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDetails of his death were not provided.<\/p>\n
\n\tHaskins played Principal Belding first on the Disney Channel show\u00a0Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which was retooled after one season and became\u00a0Saved by the Bell on NBC, running from 1989-93. He then reprised the character on Saved by the Bell: The New Class, which aired from 1993-2000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tHaskins would go on to play Belding one final time in\u00a0February 2015 when he reunited<\/a> with Bell stars Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez and Tiffani Thiessen for a sketch on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n \n\tThe\u00a0Chattanooga, Tennessee-born actor appeared in numerous TV shows and films throughout his decades-long career, including Seth MacFarlane\u2019s\u00a0A Million Ways to Die in the West<\/a>\u00a0(2014), Mad\u00a0Men, Hot in Cleveland<\/a> and\u00a0New Girl<\/a>. He also was on the Showtime series\u00a0I\u2019m Dying Up Here, Cartoon Network\u2019s Robot Chicken and FX\u2019s\u00a0It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n \n\tHaskins made his onscreen debut in 1979 when he showed up on an episode of CBS\u2019 The Dukes of Hazzard.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe played basketball for a year at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and in 2000 was honored with the school\u2019s Most Distinguished Alumni Award. He also had a regional high school academic decathlon named after him, The Dennis Haskins Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAlso a musician,\u00a0Haskins in 2000 participated in two USO tours for troops in Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia and again in 2002 in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Oman and Kyrgyzstan. He also flew with the Blue Angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe is survived by his son,\u00a0Dustin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dennis Haskins, who for more than a decade\u00a0played the lovable\u00a0but stern\u00a0Principal Richard Belding on Saved by the Bell,\u00a0has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[364601,364602,88,364603,188012,10756],"class_list":["post-864321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west","tag-amcs-mad-men","tag-entertainment","tag-hot-in-cleveland","tag-new-girl","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}