R.I.P. Dustin Diamond

[Big Magilla]

His is such a sad story, but I wouldn't compare Margaret Hamilton's long, varied and successful career to his. Although in her later years she played roles like those in 13 Ghosts and Brewster McCloud that parodied her signature WWW role, she was just as well known to those of a certain age as Cora, the Maxwell House lady, which made her a wealthy woman in her later years.

Her contemporary Blanche Yurka is the one I think of from the 1930s as having had a tragic career because of an iconic villainous performance. A legendary classical actress and director on stage, she made her talkie film debut as the evil Madame De Farge in 1935's A Tale of Two Cities.
Despite legendary performances from Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone and Edna May Oliver, she is the one you remember most from that film. Yet, she waited five years for another film role after which she was forever typecast in downtrodden roles, even when playing mothers and schoolteachers.

There are many others, of course, including most of the kids from the Our Gang/Little Rascals comedies who died way too young after having fame thrust upon them at an early age. Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer and Bobby Driscoll (of Disney fame) both died tragically at 31. Stanley Clements, Gloria Grahame's first husband, lasted to 55, but was an unholy mess for most of his adult life.

More recently, there were River Phoenix, Brad Renfro and Corey Haim, whose candles burned out way too soon.

[OscarGuy]

And I of course meant "...as unsuccessfully" as Diamond. Then again, there are a lot of actors who get stuck in a character. Margaret Hamilton is a very obvious example, but the Olsen Twins had to move into fashion to get away from Full House, which none of the rest of the cast managed to do very successfully either.

Raven Symone had to put how many years between Cosby Show and Raven before she managed to shake off that image?

How many people get to have such wonderful careers in TV without having to be perpetually compared to or asked to do the same type of work as a prior performance?

[Sabin]

OscarGuy wrote
Jaleel White would have faced a similar issue after the end of Family Matters, though he had the benefit that he wore glasses and had his hair done differently, so he was able to transition away from Urkel a little more easily, though I would say not quite as successfully as Diamond.

That's a great point. Diamond never wrote glasses, which is something a typical nerd character would have worn. In a way, Diamond had a harder time taking Screech off.

I had no idea until now but Saved by the Bell: The New Class ran for seven seasons, between 1993-2000. Saved by the Bell only ran for four seasons between 1989-1993. He was on The New Class longer than the original series. It's so sad that the one time in the last twenty years that anybody really wanted to see Dustin Diamond/Screech and he dies of cancer before he can do it. I just read a report saying that he hoped his condition would improve so he could appear in Season Two.

I really, really wish some of these people just went gracefully away, get a normal job, and find some inner-peace. We're only alive for such a short time and fame is so meaningless and illusionary.

[OscarGuy]

Jaleel White would have faced a similar issue after the end of Family Matters, though he had the benefit that he wore glasses and had his hair done differently, so he was able to transition away from Urkel a little more easily, though I would say not quite as successfully as Diamond.

[dws1982]

He was younger by 3-4 years than the rest of the cast of Saved by the Bell at an age when that type of age difference put him in a completely different world from the rest of his cast. He made it clear that he never quite fit in with the rest of the cast when the show was being made, and then when they were transitioning to adult careers after it ended and he was still high school age, I'm sure that was tough to see. Plus, the others all played fairly generic teenagers, and he played such a specific type that it was almost impossible to see him in any other kind of role. (Even if he had been the same age as his cast mates, he still would've dealt with typecasting.) So he ended up going back to the Saved by the Bell: The New Class spin-off, and after that ended it was mostly just a lot of outlandish attempts to stay in the public eye.

A sad story.

[Sabin]

Screech is dead at 44. Of lung cancer. After no smoking for his entire life. He claims he got it from asbestos from the bad hotels he stayed in throughout his entire career. He was too sick to participate in the Peacock reboot. Very sad. He seems like he had a very difficult life.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/01/entertai ... index.html