Dennis Haskins Died of Parkinson’s Disease, Death Certificate Reveals

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2026 — LOS ANGELES — Dennis Haskins, the actor generations of kids knew simply as Mr. Belding, died of Parkinson’s disease. His death certificate, obtained by TMZ from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, lists Parkinson’s as the immediate cause of death on September 27 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. He was 75. The document also names irritable bowel syndrome, depression, hypertension and benign prostatic hyperplasia as other significant conditions — and closes a week of quiet in which the news of his passing traveled first, and the reason stayed behind.

02 Eight Years He Kept to Himself

Here is the part that lands hardest. Haskins didn’t just die of Parkinson’s — he lived with it, privately, for the last eight years of his life, according to his friend and caretaker Kimberly Snow, who spoke to The New York Times. He moved into an assisted-living facility after the diagnosis. And then, his ex-wife Sarah Quinones told TMZ, he did something heartbreaking: he cut off communication with close friends and confidants. Stopped returning calls. Stopped answering texts. Not out of anger — out of a desire that nobody know he was suffering.

Think about that for a second. This was a man whose agent of more than two decades said he “absolutely LOVED his fans” and always had time for them, no matter what. The guy who posed for photos at karaoke bars and fan conventions, who treated strangers like old friends. And in his final years, he chose to disappear a little — to protect the version of himself people loved from the version the disease was making him. That isn’t vanity. That’s someone who understood exactly what he meant to people and couldn’t bear to change the picture.

Quinones confirmed the Parkinson’s diagnosis to TMZ herself. USA TODAY, which reported the certificate’s contents on Wednesday morning, noted that it has reached out to Haskins’ representatives for comment. There is no cure for the disease — a degenerative disorder of the nervous system that brings stiffness, slowed movement and trouble with balance — though symptoms can be managed with medication and, in some cases, surgery.

03 “Hey, Hey, Hey!”

For the uninitiated, or the very young: Richard Belding was the principal of Bayside High, the perpetually flustered authority figure at the center of “Saved by the Bell,” and Haskins played him from the very beginning — the 1988 Disney Channel series “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” — straight through the show’s rebirth on NBC, all four seasons from 1989 to 1993, and on into “Saved by the Bell: The New Class.” He was the adult in a show built for kids, which meant his job was to lose: to be outwitted by Zack Morris’s schemes, to be charmed by Kelly Kapowski, to walk in at exactly the wrong moment, every time, for years.

And he was magnificent at it. Belding could have been a cartoon — the blustering principal is one of television’s oldest stock characters — but Haskins played him with this unmistakable warmth underneath the exasperation. You always knew he loved those kids. The show knew it too: whenever an episode needed a heart, Belding got the scene. He was the principal every kid wished they had, which is probably why, thirty years later, grown adults still call him Mr. Belding instead of Dennis.

04 A Career Beyond Bayside

Haskins was never only Belding, even if Belding was always the headline. The Tennessee-born actor — Chattanooga roots, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga theater days — worked steadily for decades before and after the NBC years, racking up credits on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “Magnum, P.I.,” “The Twilight Zone,” “The West Wing,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Victorious” and even the film “A Million Ways to Die in the West.” Before acting fully took hold, he’d worked as a music manager and concert promoter — a whole first act most fans never knew about.

He stepped back into Belding’s shoes one more time for a beloved 2015 “Tonight Show” sketch, reuniting with Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Tiffani Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley — a full-circle moment that reminded everyone how deeply the character had lodged in the culture. He sat out the 2020 “Saved by the Bell” reboot, which makes that Tonight Show reunion feel, in retrospect, like the goodbye he chose.

05 The Tributes

His agent Jay Schachter’s statement, given when the death was first confirmed, reads like it was written through tears: a “tragic loss,” a great person, a client and dear friend of more than twenty years who will be missed terribly. “Everyone loved Mr. Belding,” Schachter said, “and those of us who got to know Dennis loved him even more.”

Co-star Lark Voorhies posted her own tribute to Instagram. Mario Lopez was among the cast members sharing memories. And at Dimples, the Los Angeles karaoke bar where Haskins was a regular fixture, the staff paid tribute online — because of course the man who played everyone’s favorite principal was also everybody’s favorite karaoke regular. That detail tells you more about Dennis Haskins than any filmography could.

06 The Second Bayside Goodbye

Haskins is the second original “Saved by the Bell” cast member to die — Dustin Diamond, who played Screech Powers, died of cancer in 2021 at just 44. There is something especially cruel about losing the show’s resident authority figure and its resident misfit within five years of each other. The Bayside hallway keeps getting quieter.

What stays with me about this story isn’t the death certificate — it’s the eight years. Eight years of a man who made his living being recognized choosing not to be seen. Parkinson’s takes enough on its own; Haskins decided it wasn’t taking his dignity too, and he enforced that decision by pushing away the people who loved him. You can understand it and still wish, fiercely, that he hadn’t felt he had to.

So here’s to Mr. Belding: the man who never once caught Zack Morris in time, who loved his students louder than he scolded them, and who — off camera, for the last eight years — fought the hardest fight of his life without letting any of us watch. Hey, hey, hey. Thanks for everything.