James Van Der Beek, the actor who played the title character on the 1990s teen drama "Dawson’s Creek," died Feb. 11, 2026, from colorectal cancer. He was 48. Van Der Beek received a diagnosis of Stage 3 colorectal cancer in August 2023 and shared the news publicly in November 2024.
A native of Cheshire, Connecticut, Van Der Beek turned toward performance after a severe concussion sustained during a childhood football accident ended his interest in sports. He began acting in theater, appearing in a middle school production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" before moving to professional work. In 1998, he secured the role of Dawson Leery, an aspiring filmmaker in a small coastal town. The performance made him a central figure of the WB network for six seasons.
Success on television led to leading roles in films such as the 1999 high school football drama "Varsity Blues" and the 2002 film "The Rules of Attraction." Later, he played a self-deprecating, fictionalized version of himself in the ABC sitcom "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23." He followed this with a starring role as FBI Agent Elijah Mundo on "CSI: Cyber" and appeared as Matt Bromley in the first season of the drama "Pose."