Peter Engel,Saved by the BellandLast Comic StandingProducer, Dies at 88

Mar. 15, 2025

Peter Engel.Photo:Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty

Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty

Television producer Peter Engel has died. He was 88.

A cause of death was not provided. PEOPLE has reached out to the family for comment.

Executive producer Peter Engel talks with reporters at the NBC Universal Summer Press Day on April 26, 2010 in Pasadena, California.Jason Merritt/Getty

Jason Merritt/Getty

After receiving his bachelor’s degree from New York University, Engel began his entertainment career as an NBC Page in New York before moving to Los Angeles in 1967.

He went on to executive produce more than 1,000 episodes of television — mostly through a long-term partnership with NBC — over his 40-year career.

After news of his death broke, Lopez, 51, shared on his Instagram Story, “God Bless & Prayers Up Peter! #RIP.” His costar Theissen, 51, posted a photo of Engel with the message, “Forever grateful. Rip Peter.”

Alice S. Hall/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

Engel also served as an executive producer of the reality series,Last Comic Standing, for which he earned a Primetime Emmy nomination in 2004. His other credits includeCalifornia Dreams,City Guys,USA HighandHang Time.

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In 2016, Engel published his memoir,I Was Saved By The Bell: Stories of Life, Love, and Dreams that Do Come True. He opened up about writing the book in an interview withPop City Lifein January 2017.

“I shared my whole life, from working for John F. Kennedy as a local organizer and being with him every time he was in New York City to my encounters with John Lennon and Jacques Cousteau, going to the White House with Screech and ending up hallucinating in the oval office with Warren Littlefield, the president of NBC at the time,” he shared at the time.

“It’s all how we met the cast [and] how we picked them. People forget they were only 14, and Dustin Diamond was 11,” he continued. “People don’t realize I was not only being the executive producer and writer, but I had to be the papa. I had to run a real school with two full-time teachers. One grade below a B and you can’t work in California. It was a family endeavor.”

source: people.com