The actor who played one of the most memorable characters in television history has passed away.

Dustin Diamond, who played Screech on Saved by the Bell and its subsequent spinoffs, died Monday at the age of 44. Diamond's rep, Roger Paul, told the Hollywood Reporter that he died of carcinoma.

On January 14 it was reported that Diamond had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, which means cancer had already spread widely throughout his body at the time of diagnosis. He had undergone treatment in Florida to fight the disease.

More than thirty years ago he landed the role he would best be known for but not for the show we remember him from, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

When he was 11 and in the fifth grade, Diamond beat out 5,000 other hopefuls in 1988 to land the role of Samuel "Screech" Powers on the Disney Channel comedy Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the forerunner to Saved by the Bell.

 

After all of the various Saved by the Bell, shows had ended, Diamond fell on hard times and had to declare bankruptcy. In 2001 he appeared on the Howard Stern Show and asking people to buy a t-shirt from his website that said "I Paid $15 to save Screech's house."

In 2015 he was arrested after a bar fight in Wisconsin and ended up serving three months in jail for the incident.

If you grew up in the late 80s and 90s, like I did it, is a sad day. A guy who is my age suddenly in the span of less than a month went from living life to being diagnosed with cancer and then losing that battle.

RIP, Dustin Diamond.

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