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‘Dawson's Creek’ Star James Van Der Beek Dies at 48
The father of 6 had battled colorectal cancer since 2024
Actor James Van der Beek died on Wednesday after fighting colorectal cancer. He was 48.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
James Van Der Beek, a heartthrob who starred in coming-of-age dramas at the dawn of the new millennium, shooting to fame playing the titular character in Dawson’s Creek and in later years mocking his own hunky persona, has died. He was 48.
“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come,” a statement from the actor’s family that was posted on Instagram said. “For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother and friend.”
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Van Der Beek revealed in 2024 that he was being treated for colorectal cancer.
Van Der Beek made a surprise video appearance in September at a Dawson’s Creek reunion charity event in New York City after previously dropping out due to illness.
He appeared projected onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre during a live reading of the show’s pilot episode to benefit F Cancer and Van Der Beek. Lin-Manuel Miranda subbed for him on stage. “Thank you to every single person here,” Van Der Beek said.
Forever tied to ‘Dawson’s Creek’
A one-time theater kid, Van Der Beek would star in the movie Varsity Blues and on TV in CSI: Cyber as FBI Special Agent Elijah Mundo, but was forever connected to Dawson’s Creek, which ran from 1998 to 2003 on The WB.
The series followed a high school group of friends as they learned about falling in love, creating real friendships and finding their footing in life. Van Der Beek, then 20, played 15-year-old Dawson Leery, who aspired to be a director of Steven Spielberg quality.
Van Der Beek at the height of his "Dawson's Creek" popularity. The actor said he felt burdened by the show's massive success, though in later years he was able to make light of his fame.
Fergus Greer/Columbia TriStar Television/courtesy Everett Collection
Dawson’s Creek, with the moody theme song Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait,” helped define The WB as a haven for teens and young adults who related to its hyper-articulate dialogue and frank talk about sexuality. And it made household names of Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams.
The show caused a stir when one of the teens embarked on a racy affair with a teacher 20 years his senior and when Holmes’ character climbs through Dawson’s bedroom window and they curl up together. Racier shows like Euphoria and Sex Education owe a debt to Dawson’s Creek.
Van Der Beek sometimes struggled to get out from under the shadow of the show but eventually leaned into lampooning himself, like on Funny Or Die videos and on Kesha’s “Blow” music video, which included his laser gun battle with the pop star in a nightclub and dead unicorns.
“It’s tough to compete with something that was the cultural phenomenon that Dawson’s Creek was,” he told Vulture in 2013. “It ran for so long. That’s a lot of hours playing one character in front of people. So it’s natural that they associate you with that.”
A popular GIF and ‘Varsity Blues’
More than a decade after the show went off the air, a scene at the end of the show’s third season became a GIF. Dawson was watching as his soul mate embarks on a love affair with his best friend and burst into tears.
“It wasn’t scripted that I was supposed to cry; it was just one of those things where it’s a magical moment and it just happens in the scene,” he told Vanity Fair. He seemed exasperated when he told the Los Angeles Times: “All of a sudden, six years of work was boiled down to one seven-second clip on loop.” (Van Der Beek himself re-created the GIF in 2011 for Funny or Die and gave it a second life.)
Van Der Beek partnered with Emma Slater on "Dancing With the Stars" in 2019. They finished fifth in that season's competition.
Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images
While still on Dawson’s Creek, Van Der Beek hosted Saturday Night Live — the musical guest was Everlast — and landed a plum role in Varsity Blues, playing a second-string high school quarterback who leaps into the breach when the star suffers an injury.
Van Der Beek’s character, Mox, turns out not to be a football fanatic, preferring to read Kurt Vonnegut and yearning for the college education that will allow him to escape the jock mentality of his Texas town. “I don’t want your life,” he screams at one point. Critic Roger Ebert called him “convincing and likable.”
After ‘Dawson’s Creek’
Some of his projects after Dawson’s Creek include co-creating and playing Wesley “Diplo” Pentz, a dull but likable music producer in the mockumentary satire on Viceland, What Would Diplo Do? In 2019, he made it to the semifinals of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars and played a balding, out-of-shape ex-boyfriend on How I Met Your Mother.
“The more you make fun of yourself and don’t try to go for any kind of respect, the more people seem to respect you,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011. “I’ve always been a clown trapped in a leading man’s body.”
He’s also appeared in a number of movies, such as Kevin Smith’s 2001 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and its 2019 sequel, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. He also was in the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation of The Rules of Attraction in 2002 opposite Jessica Biel and Kate Bosworth.
Van Der Beek and his wife Kimberly took some of their children to a Halloween party in Hollywood in 2016. Van Der Beek began his acting career with stage roles.
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for GOOD+
In 2025, he was unmasked as Griffin on The Masked Singer, after performing a cover of John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen.
Early life as a theater kid
Van Der Beek, who was raised in Cheshire, Connecticut, started acting at 13 after suffering a concussion playing football that prevented him from playing for a year on doctor’s orders. He landed the role of Danny Zuko in his school production of Grease.
He stuck with theater, landing at 16 in 1994 an off-Broadway role in Finding the Sun by Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee and one of the sons in a revival of Shenandoah at the prestigious Goodspeed Opera House in his home state.
He earned a scholarship to New Jersey’s Drew University but left school early when he got Dawson’s Creek. In 2024, he returned to campus to accept an honorary degree for his “selfless service and exemplary commitment to the mission of Drew,” the university said.
Drew University President Hilary Link welcomed Van Der Beek with a popular quote from his Dawson’s Creek character: “Edge is fleeting,” she said, “but heart lasts forever. So on this morning, we pay tribute to that heart.”
He is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and six children, Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn and Jeremiah.
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