Dennis Haskins was born on November 18, 1950, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and remained closely identified with his hometown throughout his life. He began building an acting career around the turn of the 1980s, appearing in television programs including The Dukes of Hazzard and later Archie Bunker’s Place, Magnum, P.I. and The Twilight Zone. The work was often in small or guest roles, but it gave Haskins years of professional experience before the part that would define his career arrived.
That turning point was Principal Richard Belding. Dennis went through a lengthy audition process to win the role on the Disney Channel series Good Morning, Miss Bliss. When that series ended, the concept was reworked for NBC as Saved by the Bell, and Haskins was among the performers carried into the new production. Beginning in 1989, millions of viewers came to know him as Bayside High School’s frequently exasperated but ultimately caring principal.
Dennis remained with the character far longer than the original group of Bayside students. After Saved by the Bell, he continued as Belding in Saved by the Bell: The New Class from 1993 through 2000 and appeared in other parts of the franchise. Across its various incarnations, Richard Belding became the role with which Haskins was permanently associated. His familiar entrance and the character’s “Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?” became part of the show’s identity.
He nevertheless continued to work beyond Bayside. His later television appearances included The West Wing, The Practice, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Men of a Certain Age, Mad Men, How I Met Your Mother, New Girl and Hot in Cleveland. His film work included Max Keeble’s Big Move and Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West.
Music also remained part of his life. A longtime karaoke enthusiast, Haskins released Karaoke with Your Favorite Principal Dennis in 2009 and later recorded music with Shooter Jennings. His enthusiasm for performing extended well beyond acting.
One of the most personally meaningful accomplishments of Haskins’s later life took him back to Chattanooga. Although UTC had honored him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2000, he still regretted leaving school without completing his degree. Decades after beginning college, he returned to finish what he had started. On December 12, 2015, at age 65, Dennis Haskins graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a bachelor’s degree in theater.
He also gave something back to the institution that had helped shape him. Haskins donated his collection of working Saved by the Bell scripts and memorabilia to UTC. The collection preserved not simply finished episodes familiar to viewers, but scripts he had actually worked from and annotated during production.
Dennis Haskins’s final widely noted return as Richard Belding came in 2015, when he reunited with Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez and Tiffani Thiessen for a Saved by the Bell sketch on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. It allowed a generation that had grown up with Bayside High to see its principal behind the desk once more.