Call him a diamond in the rough, but there is no doubt that the actor who played Screech on “Saved by the Bell” was multifaceted. …
Call him a diamond in the rough, but there is no doubt that the actor who played Screech on “Saved by the Bell” was multifaceted. TV star Dustin Diamond died Monday after battling stage 4 cancer, which he just announced last month. He was 44 years old. He was best known for his role as the beloved nerd Samuel “Screech” Powers — a frequently beleaguered brainiac. Screech gave loving representation to science kids — long before their cool counterparts dressed up as Elon Musk for Halloween — for nearly 13 years, through three incarnations of the show. He was shocked to have not been included in the “Saved by the Bell” revival that began airing last year on Peacock. The snub is said to have been handed down due to the negative notoriety that seemed to dog Diamond. In fact, according to the Sun, he credited the underbelly of fame as being the reason why he put off seeing a doctor about a large lump on his neck — which proved to be a deadly form of cancer. As per his dear friend, insurance mogul Dan Block, Diamond kept the unsightly bulge a secret because “he was afraid of someone taking pictures of it and posting it online.” And who can blame the real-life Screech? Trolls had already ragged him for having a “punchable face.” His dying wishes were to meet Justin Chancellor, the bass player from Tool (who inspired Diamond’s virtuosity in a metal band called Salty the Pocketknife), as reported by Page Six, and to visit the “Star Wars” exhibit in Florida’s Disney World.
