Yesterday it was revealed Niel Hope, who played Derek "Wheels" Wheeler on Degrassi Junior High, died November 25, 2007.
Wheels certainly had one of the crummiest lives of anyone on Degrassi.
His parents die and he has to go live with his grandparents. He gets no sympathy. Even in the late eighties schools would have had grief counsellors or at least referred a kid like Wheels to someone who could have helped them.
Understandably, Wheels finds it hard living with his grandparents and decides to run away to far-off exciting Port Hope to be with his real dad. The rule on Degrassi is always" the worst case scenario will happen", so naturally Wheels gets picked up by a pedophile while trying to hitchhike. He finally gets to the hotel in Port Hope and his dad doesn't really even seem interested. His father's reaction when Wheels says, "I play for a band, too, Dad, called The Zit Remedy" is priceless.
After having to go back to living with his grandparents, Wheels eventually steals money to buy booze. He gets kicked out of his grandparents' house and nobody will take him in.
In the finale, Wheels gets behind the wheel while drunk (though why he would do this after his parents were killed by a drunk driver I don't know) and ends up permanently blinding Lucy in a car accident. He returns to the opening of Degrassi Community School and apologizes.
After "School's Out", Niel Hope walked away from it all. No wonder. The show was a bucking embarrassment.
Cause of death is believed to have resulted from alcoholism. Hope died at a hospital in Hamilton. He was 35 at the time.
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