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The following biography
is from
Wikipedia.org
“The
Free Encyclopedia.”
Dustin Neil Diamond (born January 7, 1977),
is an American actor who gained fame during the 1990s as Screech, a
nerdy character in the popular sitcom Saved by the Bell.
****
Early Life
Dustin was born in San Jose, California. He
was enrolled in Daniel's Chapple A&E Zion Elementary in Anaheim,
California. His first job involved working as a living mannequin in a
department store display. He later auditioned for a role in the cult
classic Cool as Ice but was rejected because he was too young. He was
given a smaller role, but his scenes were cut from the movie. He also
appeared briefly in Big Top Pee-wee.
Career
Screech from Saved by the Bell
Dustin Diamond's most memorable role was
that of Samuel "Screech" Powers on Saved by the Bell, a role he played
for close to thirteen years, from its beginning as Good Morning, Miss
Bliss through its final incarnation as Saved by the Bell: The New Class.
Screech was originally supposed to have an
extremely high pitched, almost squealing voice, but instead it was
decided that the character would possess a quirky adenoid, although not
over the top tone instead. The show originally aired on The Disney
Channel under the Good Morning, Miss Bliss title (now re-airing as
episodes of Saved By the Bell), featuring Hayley Mills in the titular
role. After a year, the show was brought over to NBC and repackaged into
its more well-known incarnation. Of all the show's characters, only
Screech, Zack Morris, Lisa Turtle, and Mr. Belding made the jump from
JFK Junior High in Indiana, to Bayside High in Palisades, California,
although the incredibly abrupt change in venue was never acknowledged,
much less explained, possibly it was just a new show with no relations
to Miss Bliss.
Screech was more often than not a pivotal
figure in the schemes and pranks of the Bayside gang, from pretending to
be an alien (which almost resulted in his dissection at the hands of the
government), to getting kidnapped by rival high school Valley in the
ongoing inter-school "Prank War", and in one instance even winning the
"Miss Bayside" Pageant, in spite of an impressive drum solo performed by
A.C. Slater. His parents, who were extremely obsessed with all things
Elvis-related, were never seen, aside from one episode where his mother
leaves him in charge of the house as his parents went on a vacation to
Graceland, which naturally led to an episode spanning dilemma involving
a broken Elvis statue.
Screech's robot Kevin is also occasionally
shown in some episodes, and Screech makes numerous references to his
insect and animal collections. He has also been shown dressing up as
(and dancing like) Michael Jackson, impersonating Zack on numerous
occasions, and stereotypically portraying a Native American for Zack's
school project. He claims to be descended from the "Great Italian lover
and spy", Luigi Powerelli, making it clear that he is part Italian. In
the final episode of the regular series, he willingly relinquishes the
title of valedictorian to Jessie Spano because he knows how much it
meant to her.
Continuing the series into college, Saved
by the Bell: The College Years shows most of the cast transplanted into
not only the same college, but also the same college dormitory. The most
notable of Screech's actions in this series involves him stealing a
canister of nitrous oxide from the chemistry lab, in order to gain
acceptance from other students attending a rave after Slater belittles
him about being a screwup. As fate would have it, Screech accidentally
brought a can of Helium, and only the students' voices ended up getting
high.
After the end of that series, he quickly
returned to Bayside High as Mr. Belding's assistant in The New Class
episodes, remaining with the show until its cancellation.
On April 19, 2006, the official website for
Adult Swim announced that Saved by the Bell was going back into
production, with the original first series characters (save for
Elizabeth Berkley) becoming the new staff of Bayside High. Screech would
be the principal according to the report. However, it was all a hoax,
playing on the reactions to the recent series airings.
Appearances after Saved by the Bell
Diamond has kept busy professionally since
the popular teenager sitcom was cancelled. He has been featured on a
number of TV shows, including The Weakest Link, and has participated in
a celebrity boxing contest, and professional wrestling matches. Of
special note is his appearance on Celebrity Boxing, where he mercilessly
pummeled an irate Ron Palillo, of Welcome Back, Kotter fame. Concerning
his reaction to his decisive victory in the bout, Diamond claimed to
have "...beaten Horshack like I was Soda Popinski".
He also has released a video entitled
Dustin Diamond Teaches Chess where he shows various techniques for
becoming a better chess player. It is punctuated by hammy, over the top
performances by Dustin, often dressed in various costumes, such as
dressing as Screech. In 2000, he made a guest appearance on shory-lived
WB Network comedy, Off Centre.
His appearance on the June 7, 2002 edition
of The Opie and Anthony Show (with co-guest Jim Gaffigan), was widely
considered to be the worst episode of the radio program ever. Although
Diamond was not entirely blamed for the show's poor quality, he was far
and away the person who was subjected most to malicious harassment by
callers.
Diamond has a cameo appearance as himself
in the movie Made, where Vince Vaughn's character incredulously
questions a doorman at a club as to why "Screech" was allowed into the
venue while he was not. Diamond also appeared in Dickie Roberts: Former
Child Star as himself as well. He is only shown in a few scenes (when
Dickie is hanging out with a bunch of former child stars in an apartment
and at Dickie's sitcom rehearsal).
In the May 2006 issue of Stuff magazine the
readers voted Diamond the 3rd most annoying former child actor that they
would like to punch in the face. He was beaten by former child stars
Danny Bonaduce and Corey Feldman.
Salty The Pocketknife
Diamond was a bass player in the band Salty
The Pocketknife. The band is rumored to have disbanded, and to have been
sued by its label for failing to adequately promote itself.
Stand-up comedian
Dustin has been a stand-up comedian for
some years. His comic style is very reminiscent to that of Bob Saget,
referencing his sitcom years as well as using very blue humor in his
stage act.
dustindiamond.com
In 2003, Diamond attempted to take control
of the domain dustindiamond.com, which was owned by Max Goldberg, the
creator of YTMND. Diamond was apparently upset because some of his fans
were posting gay fantasies about him in the guestbook on
dustindiamond.com. Diamond's lawyer, Herro & Lamont, LLC, served
Goldberg with a cease and desist order that was unsuccessful.
In 2004, the case was submitted to the
National Arbitration Forum acting on behalf of the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Diamond ultimately lost the suit despite
the fact that Goldberg, then 21, represented himself. The decision read,
in part, "The Panel accepts Respondent’s argument that the “outrageous
ugly and low-tech graphics and numerous errors and misspellings” as well
as the sheer absurdity of the site’s claim that Dustin Diamond is a
“FAMOUS SUPERSTAR AND SEX SYMBOL” clearly signal that the site is not
meant to be taken seriously. Whether the site is regarded as parody,
satire, or critical commentary, and notwithstanding Respondent’s
assertion that “[l]awyers are notoriously bad at understanding how humor
works,” this Panel finds that legitimate noncommercial fair use
commentary is involved."
The precedent-setting decision is believed
to be the first time that a celebrity has lost a domain name dispute to
a non-commercial parody site.[1]
Personal life
Some of the information in this section may
not be verified by as reliable a source as would be preferred. It should
be checked for inaccuracies and modified as needed, citing more reliable
sources.
While working on Saved by the Bell, members
of the cast regularly dated each other. Diamond, who was considerably
younger than the rest of the cast, was not a part of this, although he
has claimed to have dated many of the show's extras. He had a
relationship with Candace Cameron in the mid 90's.
Diamond claims to maintain a very close
friendship with T.K. Carter, who played Milo the Assistant Principal on
the Miss Bliss Episodes, as well as with Dennis Haskins (who played Mr.
Belding) who, Diamond has been quoted as saying, "...showed him the
ropes". Diamond admits that he was never close to the other teen actors
during the taping of the show since he was three years younger than
them. He says that he doesn't keep in touch with them as a result.
Diamond reportedly has plans to write a
book about his experience growing up as a child actor. Rumors have
circulated that he is the brother of Beastie Boy Michael Diamond, aka
Mike D (and some say there is a resemblance), as well as that he is the
son of singer Neil Diamond, both of which are untrue. However, Dustin's
father Mark Diamond did in fact make an appearance in a Saved by the
Bell episode, where he played a science teacher who threatened to
"...experiment with their grades."
Diamond has publically professed an
affinity for the immensely popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft and has in
fact been involved in various promotions for the game. In June of 2006
he revealed his two avatars as orcs named 'Hellomoto' & 'Chrysaor' on
the game's Gorefiend server.
House foreclosure
On June 11, 2006, Diamond appeared on the
Dean Blundell show in Toronto on 102.1 The edge revealing he was in fact
"broke" and was having his mortgage called in by a person who financed
the mortgage, as bad credit prevented him from getting a traditional
mortgage.
On June 13, 2006, Diamond appeared on The
Howard Stern Show. Diamond said he was given 30 days to come up with
$250,000 USD or risk losing his home for failing to make payments on his
land lease. Diamond said he blamed Arthur Giraldo who works for New York
Capital Exchange, a mortgage broker who Diamond claims "screws over the
working man then laughs at their expense"[2]. He decided to sell
t-shirts for $15 that had "I gave 15 dollars to help Screeech [sic] save
his house" emblazoned on the front. He said that he would need to sell
30,000 t-shirts to completely cover the costs. He explained the extra
'e' in Screeech was needed because of copyright laws, for he does not
own the rights to the name or character.
On June 14, 2006, Diamond did a phone
interview with MTV Live the flagship show for MTV Canada promoting the
sale of his "D-Shirts" to save his home. During the interview, host
Daryn Jones' first question to Diamond was: what the name of the dance
that he and character Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies) did in the episode of
Saved by the Bell where there was a dance contest. Diamond responded
"The Sprain." The next day on June 15, 2006 that episode aired on TBS in
Canada at 08:30 EST.
In June 2006, Dustin appeared on "The
Hamish and Andy Show", an Australian (Melbourne based) radio station.
His phone interview was due to a contest conducted by the two hosts of
the radio show called "Where the Bloody Hell Are They Now?", which
consists of a race between the two to find ex-celebrities. Diamond was
one celebrity, Vanilla Ice was the other. During the interview, Dustin
was asked what had his life become after fame and what he was up to at
that moment. He appealed to listeners to buy his T-shirts online from
his website, www.getdshirts.com, to help him save his house, and anyone
who bought a "D-shirt" would also get it personally autographed for an
extra $5.
On August 14, 2006, Diamond was scheduled
for an online television telethon, in an effort to raise funds to
prevent the foreclosure on his house. His broadcast was cancelled less
than 90 minutes before it was to be aired live, as an executive at the
startup online television network claimed that the foreclosure story
lacked credibility, and that Diamond had "exhibited some really strange
and obnoxious behavior." [3]
On September 2, 2006, Milwaukee Journal
Sentinal reporter Mike Nichols posted an article making unsubstantiated
claims that Diamond was a fraud and the whole story about Diamond losing
his house was a publicity stunt.
Sex Tape
On September 27, 2006, the New York Daily
News reported that Diamond will join fellow celebrities Pamela Anderson,
Tommy Lee, Paris Hilton, Fred Durst, and Colin Farrell with a scandal of
a surfacing sex tape. The tape, which features Dustin having a kinky
threesome with two women, is 40 minutes long and has been tentatively
titled Saved by the Smell or Diamond in the Buff, due to the alleged
performance of a Dirty Sanchez. Diamond, who had his agent speak for
him, mentioned that he was trying to obliterate the 'Screech'
typecasting.[1]
Select filmography
13th Grade (2005) ... Corey
Duck Dodgers (2005) TV Episode (voice) ...
Xainius the Eternal
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003)
... Himself
The Rerun Show (2002) TV Episode ... Doctor
Big Fat Liar (2002) ... Wolf Party Guest
Jane White Is Sick & Twisted (2002) ...
Simone
Made (2001) ... Himself
Longshot (2000) ... Waiter
The Toolbox (1999) ... Thaddeus
Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas
(1994) (TV) ... Samuel 'Screech' Powers
Saved by the Bell: The College Years ...
Samuel "Screech" Powers
Getting By ... Episode: "Pinball Wizard"
(1993) TV Episode
Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993) TV
Series ... Samuel 'Screech' Powers
Saved by the Bell ... Samuel 'Screech'
Powers
Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style (1992)
(TV) ... Samuel 'Screech' Powers
The Munsters Today (1990) TV Episode ...
Rob
The Wonder Years (1989-1990) TV Episode ...
Joey
She's Out of Control (1989) ... Kid on the
Beach
Purple People Eater (1988) ... Big Z
Big Top Pee-wee (1988) ... Child - Deke
It's a Living (1987) TV Episode ... A Young
Sonny
Good Morning, Miss Bliss (1987) TV Series
... Samuel 'Screech' Powers
The Price of Life (1987) ... Young Stiles
References
1 Piazza, Jo. "Porn star's name may ring a
'Bell'", New York Daily News, September 27, 2006.
****
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URL of Original Article:
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Date Article Copied:
October 2006
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