Dustin Diamond Trapped by Screech Role, Faced Financial Struggles After Saved by the Bell

Dustin Diamond remained trapped in his role as Screech on the 1990s sitcom Saved by the Bell until a three-week battle with cancer killed him in 2021 at age 44.

Insiders said his struggles went beyond typecasting. Despite the show's huge success, the former child star received low residuals, which worsened the effects of being stuck as one of TV's top geeks.

Diamond's path to stardom and the turmoil before his death are the focus of Investigation Discovery's Hollywood Demons series. The episode After the Bell looks at how scandals damaged the sitcom's wholesome image.

"I think that Dustin was trapped in a place where that's all he really knew, that lovable, dorky character," said Ed Alonzo, who played Max on the show.

"Even the movies and TV shows that he did after that, they always had him depicting the same type of character, or they would have him play himself, the actor who played the dorky kid," Alonzo added. "I think that was really difficult for him to find his own way."

Saved by the Bell ran from 1989 to 1993. Spin-offs included Saved by the Bell: The College Years, Good Morning, Miss Bliss and Saved by the Bell: The New Class, in which Diamond starred. He was a steady presence in the franchise but did not cash in.

Diamond filed for bankruptcy in 2001. His friend Dan Block said Diamond lost his house and everything because he stopped paying the mortgage. Diamond relocated to a small Wisconsin town but kept struggling financially. Block noted that in 2022, Diamond got a residual check for $12.74 from the show.

"We were paid so low on the show," Alonzo said. He recalled landing the highest pay for a few episodes after coming from a Las Vegas gig. His manager insisted on matching that rate for the Max role.

Alonzo remembered set talks with other cast parents. "They were all kind of shocked at the amount of money that the kids were making," he said. "And I kind of kept quiet because I didn't want to say anything. I felt so horrible."

His better pay did not last. "I guess it was about seven episodes in that they came back to my manager, and they made some changes," Alonzo said. "They wanted to eliminate me from the show, but it was a bargaining tool to get me to work for the same rate as everyone else."

Diamond's father, Mark Diamond, said fame did not bring lasting money once costs mounted. "Dustin's agent would take out her 10% commission," he explained. "Anything left over, we had to cover certain things like taxes. Gasoline, obviously. Headshots. Every fan letter wanted the same thing. 'Can you send us a 8x10 picture autographed?' Thousands of letters. We had to pay for that. This didn't leave much money to do anything. In fact, nothing."

In later years, Diamond faced lawsuits for unpaid taxes and foreclosure for missed mortgage payments, according to the Associated Press. He appeared on reality TV, made a sex tape and produced a Lifetime tell-all documentary. In 2015, a court sentenced him to four months in jail for his role in a bar stabbing.

"Years after Saved by the Bell was done, he tried to do stand-up comedy and work in comedy clubs," Alonzo said. "That's incredibly difficult to do. If you haven't worked on that your whole life, it's not going to be as easy as memorizing a script and trying to make that funny. You have to write jokes and entertain audiences that are live right in front of you. That's a whole other quest to conquer."

Diamond published his memoir Behind the Bell in 2009. He later claimed a ghostwriter invented many scandalous stories about co-stars, but the harm stuck.

"I was still friends with all the kids," Alonzo said. "Of course, I got the book and checked it out. And right away, I realized a lot of the stories there were made up. They never happened. I think they wanted to make a book that would seem more controversial to sell copies. But I think the public also saw through it."

"The kids were really upset about it," Alonzo added. "There were some things in there that were just horrible. I know with some shows that have kids in them, maybe they do have other problems and chaos going on. But in the early years when I was there, I never saw any chaos with the kids. I never saw anything that would be abusive or lead to an unhappy place. Everybody was happy."

In the mid-2010s, Diamond starred in low-budget Insurance King commercials with Block, the company's founder. Block said the ads paid Diamond more than his Saved by the Bell residuals. Block also bought Diamond a car and helped reunite him with his father after 15 years of estrangement.

"The thing that I think changed was [the show] going into syndication," Alonzo said. "It would sometimes play five or more times a day on a specific channel. And so, those residuals would build up a little bit, but we're still not talking about real showbiz money. We're talking about very, very low amounts of money, almost what would've been considered a minimum wage for actors. And a big part of that was the fact that it was on a Saturday morning and not in primetime. And that made a huge difference to the scale that was paid."

In 2019, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who played Zack Morris, told Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that the cast got poor syndication deals. "We made really bad deals," he said. "Poor deals back then. It is what it is. You move on, you learn. Great experience."

A Saved by the Bell reboot launched on Peacock in 2020 with original cast members. Diamond was left out.

Block said Lark Voorhies, who played Lisa Turtle, was the only alum to contact Diamond during his cancer fight. "[Lark] was a really good person, and she left a voicemail for him, and we played it for him before he died," Block said. "He enjoyed it. She was the only one who really reached out to him, and [it was] really heartfelt. I know they had a connection."

"That was my very good friend," said Voorhies, 52. "I miss him."

Alonzo said Diamond's story offers lessons for child actors. "The sad thing is, I think for child actors, especially the ones who become super famous like Dustin, they blow up huge, but they become so typecast with those characters," he said. "It seems more common among young actors who play a nerdy, offbeat character. I never see it happen as much to the ones who are playing the leading man or leading lady characters, even in young genres. But I do think with someone like Dustin, they really do have to fight for what they want."

"He was just a nice, friendly, lovable guy when I met him," Alonzo said. "I never saw anything that would make me think that his future was going to be dark. Never would've suspected that."