11:43 PM EDT 04/13/2013
Saved by the Bell
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Dustin Diamond: She's Not the Lark Voorhies I Knew
Originally posted 10/04/2012 04:50PM
In 2003, Lark Voorhies and Dustin Diamond reunited after many years to record commentary for a Saved by the Bell box set. But it wasn't the Screech-and-Lisa reunion he expected.
"I was always used to playing off of her and looking into her eyes," Diamond says of his former costar. "When I saw her at the commentary, it wasn't the Lark I knew."
Voorhies stared into space, Diamond says, much like she did during a series of interviews with PEOPLE. Voorhies says she is spiritual, but her mother Tricia revealed her daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
She wasn't always like this. Voorhies, who famously played the bubbly Lisa Turtle on the '90s Saturday morning sitcom, was just as engaging offscreen, recalls Mario Lopez.
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Lark Voorhies Battling Bipolar Disorder, Her Mom Tells PEOPLE
Originally posted 10/03/2012 03:00PM
While most of the cast from Saved by the Bell have remained in the spotlight, Lark Voorhies has largely been out of sight.
The former teen star, known to a generation of fans as the fashionable Lisa Turtle, denies anything is wrong, but after a bizarre Yahoo! video went viral earlier this year, some questioned whether drugs played a role. Voorhies adamantly denied it. Instead, her mother says, she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In a series of interviews with PEOPLE, it was clear something wasn't right. Voorhies, 38, would frequently stop mid-sentence and stare off, often mumbling to herself or to others who weren't there.
"There are things that have traumatized her," says Tricia, 64, who shares a home with her daughter in Pasadena, Calif. "I care deeply about my daughter and I want her to resume her life."
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Lark Voorhies of Saved By the Bell: What She Looks Like Now
Originally posted 05/11/2012 07:30PM
Lark Voorhies, who played popular Bayside High School student Lisa Turtle on Saved by the Bell, seemed to slip into her shell once the show went off the air in 1993.
The actress, 38, popped up this week on Michael Yo's The Yo Show on Yahoo!'s OMG! blog – and the Internet was buzzing over how much she's changed. (See the side-by-side photos above).
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Mario Lopez: Saved by the Bell Reunion Came Down to Wire
Originally posted 07/30/2009 02:00PM
It's a reunion 20 years in the making ... and a story that took over a year in planning.
When the cast of Saved by the Bell assembled for this week's PEOPLE photo shoot and cover story, everyone breathed a sigh of relief-including Mario Lopez, who nearly missed the whole thing.
"Everybody knew the 20-year anniversary was coming up," says Lopez. "This PEOPLE story has been in the works for over a year, long before [late night host] Jimmy Fallon started talking about it. We were all excited about it."
But Lopez's work ethic almost prevented the reunion from coming to fruition. "I'm so busy. I was concerned about my schedule," says Lopez, who in the past year alone has danced on Broadway in A Chorus Line, become the new host of TV's Extra and written a fitness book, Mario Lopez's Knockout Fitness. The night before the PEOPLE shoot in Los Angeles he was making a public appearance in Canada, across the country, and arrived on set straight from the airport after a seven-hour flight.
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