Baywatch actor Michael Newman has died at the age of 68.
The screen star was best known for his role as lifeguard Mike “Newmie” Newman on the NBC action-drama series, for which he starred in 150 episodes between 1989 and 2000.
He died from heart complications on Sunday, his friend Matt Felker confirmed to PEOPLE.
Newman had a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s disease, which he was first diagnosed with in 2006.
Felker said: “I got to see Mike the last time he was conscious and he looked [at] me and in typical Mike fashion said, ‘You’re just in time.'”
Newman opened up about living with the progressive neurological condition — which affects a person’s mobility and causes stiffness and tremors — and how he lost out on experiences with his loved ones.
He told the outlet in January: “Everything changes.
“All those things that you thought you were going to do with your children and grandchildren, pictures we were going to take, all the plans I had … stopped.”
He admitted: “It’s a slow burn.
“Parkinson’s disease doesn’t wait for you. It keeps on plowing in.”
Newman’s Baywatch alter ego Newmie was based on himself as he was a lifeguard in real life.
The actor wasn’t intended to star on the show — which also starred the likes of David Hasselhoff (Mitch Buchannon) and Pamela Anderson (C.J. Parker) — and was first employed as a stuntman, but he eventually got to be right at the heart of the action.
Speaking to the publication, he said: “I was too useful for them to get rid of me.
“I basically started off as a stuntman, and after seven years of being out of the opening credits, I finally was anointed and allowed to be in the front of the show.”
After his stint on Baywatch, Newman retired from acting because he found it “hard” to “look natural” on camera.
He explained: “If you didn’t have to be there, why would you be?
“Let’s be honest … there’s not too many actors that have survived the years of working in Hollywood.”
He admitted there are negative sides to the industry that led to his exit.
Newman said: “Having to deal with the people who scratch your name out on the script and put their name on there?
“That kind of thing … you never get used to that.”
He is survived by his wife, Sarah, and their son Chris and daughter Emily, as well as their granddaughter, Charlie.
