| Getting past 'Saved By The Bell' Saved By The Bell took a toll on Mark-Paul Gosselaar Toronto Sun Jim Slotek August 23, 1998 To the best of his recollection, it was in November of 1993 that Mark-Paul Gosselaar first discovered he had died. "It was right around Thanksgiving," says the guy who played the smooth-talking, blond-haired Zack Morris for six years on NBC's Saturday morning high school series Saved By The Bell. "I read it on this (online) bulletin board and ever since it's been off and on. I've died a half a dozen times in different ways, motorcycle, car, drug overdose. "I mean, I could go on and say 'Hey, I'm not dead!' But people go `N'uh-uh n'uh-uh, you're not him. You lie.' Now 24 -- and, with a movie and TV series on the way -- Gosselaar is one of that ilk of celebrities tailor-made to become an urban myth. We're talking patently recognizable, with a hint of whatever-happened-to obscurity. It's how myths evolved that the kid who played Paul on The Wonder Years got to be Marilyn Manson and how Mikey from the Life commercials took acid and jumped off a building. "I mean, for the longest time, I told people I wasn't online because I didn't want to answer for that kind of stuff. But there's a girl I gave the right to do an official Mark-Paul Gosselaar Web page. She was only 13 and very professional. I ran into it one day and called her and said 'Keep it up.' And she said `Can it be official?' and I said `Sure!' I love reading bulletin boards, y'know -- `I heard he's a homo', `I heard he's on drugs', `I heard he's dead'. My wife and I read this stuff and laugh." A reporter tells him that he ran 'Mark-Paul Gosselaar' through a search engine and found online "nude" pictures -- the kind where a head is placed on someone else's body. "You're kidding? You actually saw it?" he says, beaming. "Was I huge?" Beyond huge, he's told. "That's great!" Such is the turnaround for Mark-Paul Gosselaar these days that even the lies told about him are flattering. Gosselaar rode out three dry years after leaving Saved By The Bell in '94 (the show -- which gave us such names as Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, and Beverly Hills 90210's Tiffani-Amber Thiessen -- still carries on with a younger class of kids, but has retained comic relief character Screech). But this week he hits the big screen as co-star of the teen comedy Dead Man On Campus, about a straight-A, student-gone-wrong (Tom Everett Scott) and Cooper, his bad influence bong-smoking roommate (Gosselaar) who try to save their academic standing through the fabled Dead Man's Clause -- the one that says if your roommate dies you get an automatic pass. So they set about finding the most suicidal kid on campus and enlisting him as a roomie. With the role, Gosselaar continues an ironic 11-year onscreen academic career that includes Saved By The Bell, Saved By The Bell: The College Years and Dead Man On Campus. In fact, Gosselaar -- a child actor since age four -- hasn't been to a school since he started Saved By The Bell at age 13. "On the show, we had the three-hour-a-day tutor which was terrible." It's not exactly a huge character arc from Zack to Cooper -- both being shallow, smooth-talking operators. He's a little prouder of the character he plays in Hyperion Bay, an upcoming WB fall series where he stars as a one-time high school geek who comes back to his small town as a software mogul and starts a computer company. "The character didn't get girls in high school, he was overshadowed by his older brother. That felt more like me. I wasn't very popular when I was in school -- although people thought they knew a lot about me. They knew me from Mattel commercials and stuff. I always felt like such a freak, the kid that works, the one who gets paid to smile." He met his wife Lisa, who was an extra, during the last season on the show. "I'd never dated anybody like that who came onto the show for a spot. But all of us on the show dated each other. Y'know it's kinda hard not to, working with these beautiful women for six years." The romances among the cast apparently ran in all directions, though Gosselaar doesn't elaborate. He does allow he was close to Berkley and he only ever saw the controversial softcore Showgirls "on the Spectravision, with my head sideways to see through the squiggly lines. There were scenes I didn't watch. I couldn't stand to see Elizabeth that way." After Saved By The Bell came the crash. "I wasn't working. I'd walk into a room and be typecast immediately as the guy from Saved By The Bell. They wouldn't give me a chance to show them otherwise. And I didn't work for three years. I mean, some actor who's bussing tables at Jerry's Deli would say 'Oh three years isn't that long of a time.' But when you've been successful for that many years and all of a sudden you hit a wall, well that's pretty hard. "When I hear about Gary Coleman being a security guard, I can respect that. Because my cousin was a car detailer (a high-end cleaner) and I was set to detail cars for a living." Coincidence or not, it was about then the outdoorsy Gosselaar took up skydiving. "I did 41 high jumps in three years and was ready to try skysurfing. Then I got married and bought life insurance and parachuting kind of went out the door. There were people who died that I was close to. Every time you go up there you go 'This could be it.' " After three years, however, things began to change. Roles in direct-to-video films (he doesn't even want to identify them, but they include a thriller called Kounterfeit with Corbin Bernsen) were followed by parts in three movies-of-the-week and a successful audition for Dead Man On Campus. Luckily for Gosselaar, director Alan Cohn had never watched Saved By The Bell. After he made his casting decision, Cohn says he was second-guessed by the studio. "Whatever happens, it's not the end of the world. Acting is just a ways and means to do things I enjoy ... which is racing cars, being on a boat, wakeboarding behind a boat, hanging out with friends, eating a good dinner and having a nice house to live in. It's really just a job for me." THE SAVED BY THE BELL FILE Elizabeth Berkley: Played Jesse Spano. Big credit: Nomi in Showgirls. Last seen: The First Wives Club. Soon to be seen in: Cross Country, a "Gen-X bisexual comedy" with Parker Posey. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen: Played Kelly Kapowski. Big credit: Valerie in 90210 from 1994-98. Soon to be seen in: From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money. Mario Lopez: Played Slater. Big credit: Played Greg Louganis in a 1996 TV movie. Cast: This year in the syndicated cop show Pacific Blue. Dustin Diamond: Played Screech. Still, painfully, on the show. Last screen credit: Saved By The Bell: Wedding In Las Vegas (TV movie, 1994). Working during hiatus as a standup comic. Dennis Haskins: Played Principal Belding. Still on the show. Last screen credit: Saved By The Bell: Wedding In Las Vegas (TV movie, 1994). |
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