NEW YORK \u2014 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 \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek\u201d and in later years mocking his own hunky persona, has died. He was 48.<\/p>\n
A statement posted on the actor\u2019s official Instagram page Wednesday said Van Der Beek died earlier in the day. \u201cHe met his final days with courage, faith, and grace,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Van Der Beek revealed in 2024 that he was being treated for colorectal cancer.<\/p>\n
Van Der Beek made a surprise video appearance in September at a \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek\u201d reunion charity event in New York City after previously dropping out due to illness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He appeared projected onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre during a live reading of the show\u2019s pilot episode to benefit F Cancer and Van Der Beek. Lin-Manuel Miranda subbed for him on stage. \u201cThank you to every single person here,\u201d Van Der Beek said.<\/p>\n
Forever tied to \u2018Dawson\u2019s Creek\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n A one-time theater kid, Van Der Beek would star in the movie \u201cVarsity Blues\u201d and on TV in \u201cCSI: Cyber\u201d as FBI Special Agent Elijah Mundo, but was forever connected to \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek,\u201d which ran from 1998 to 2003 on The WB.<\/p>\n 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, than 20, played 15-year-old Dawson Leery, who aspired to be a director of Steven Spielberg quality.<\/p>\n \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek,\u201d with the moody theme song Paula Cole\u2019s \u201cI Don\u2019t Want To Wait,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019 character climbs through Dawson\u2019s bedroom window and they curl up together. Racier shows like \u201cEuphoria\u201d and \u201cSex Education\u201d owe a debt to \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s \u201cBlow\u201d music video, which included his laser gun battle with the pop star in a nightclub and dead unicorns.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s tough to compete with something that was the cultural phenomenon that \u2018Dawson\u2019s Creek\u2019 was,\u201d he told Vulture in 2013. \u201cIt ran for so long. That\u2019s a lot of hours playing one character in front of people. So it\u2019s natural that they associate you with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source triblive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEW YORK \u2014 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 \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek\u201d and in later years mocking his own hunky persona, has died. He was 48. A statement posted on the actor\u2019s official Instagram page Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2277819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2277818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/James-Van-Der-Beek-the-\u2018Dawsons-Creek-star-who-later.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2277818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2277820,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277818\/revisions\/2277820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2277818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2277818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2277818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}