Dennis Button Haskins IV, a Chattanooga native and actor best known as school principal Richard Belding on the hit television show “Saved by the Bell,” died Sept. 27 in Burbank, Calif., at age 75 from Parkinson’s disease.
Mr. Haskins became known to generations of TV viewers as the principal of Bayside High, earning the nickname “America’s Favorite Principal.”
Born in Chattanooga on Nov. 18, 1950, Mr. Haskins attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, Notre Dame High School, and the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.
Before his television career, he was deeply involved at UTC, where he reported for the student newspaper, performed with the drama club and Harlequins, served as Student Government Association entertainment chairman, and belonged to Blue Key Honor Fraternity and Raven’s Society.
He was also a founding member of the Harlequins community theater group, where he acted, worked as a stage manager, and wrote original plays. As a UTC entertainment chairman, Mr. Haskins organized student events and helped bring Ike and Tina Turner to UTC in 1973.
Mr. Haskins also used his campus involvement to support the community. Through Blue Key, he helped organize the annual “Freaks vs. Fuzz” basketball game, raising scholarship money for children of UTC and Chattanooga police officers.
Mr. Haskins first played Mr. Belding in “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” on the Disney Channel in 1988. The show was renamed “Saved by the Bell” the following year and became a defining sitcom of the 1990s.
After leaving Bayside High, Mr. Haskins appeared in films and television shows including “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”
Mr. Haskins, who was preceded in death by his parents, Dennis Button Haskins III and Veneta Marilyn Yarbrough, left UTC in the 1970s to pursue a career in entertainment in California. His first acting credit was on “The Dukes of Hazzard” in 1979 and then he played minor roles in several TV shows, including “Archie Bunker’s Place” and “Magnum, P.I.” before being cast as Mr. Belding.
In 2025, he returned to UTC to complete his degree in theater and speech. He credited the university with helping launch his acting career and donated his scripts from “Saved by the Bell” to the school’s library. In the finale of the TV sitcom spinoff “Saved by the Bell: The New Class,” Mr. Belding leaves Bayside High to become a dean at UTC. Funeral arrangements were private.