“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed away peacefully this morning. He lived his last days with courage, faith and dignity,” the actor’s wife Kimberly wrote on Instagram.
The father of six announced in 2024 that he was being treated for digestive cancer. Last September, according to the AP, he made a surprise video appearance at a charity event in New York where the cast of Dawson’s World reunited, although he had previously said he would not be attending for health reasons.
The actor, born in 1977 in the state of Connecticut in the northeast of the USA, is best remembered by the audience for the series about a group of high school friends who learn what it means to fall in love, build real friendships and find their place in life. Along with him, Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson also made a name for themselves thanks to Dawson’s world.
Van Der Beek sometimes had trouble breaking out of the shadow of that show, according to the AP. “It’s hard to compete with something that was as much of a cultural phenomenon as ‘Dawson’s World,'” 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 only natural that they associate you with it,” he stated.
Van Der Beek, who began acting at the age of 13 after an injury prevented him from playing American football, has also appeared in minor roles in the series How I Met Your Mother and The Man Next Door and Scary Movie and Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back during his career.
date:2026-02-11 21:00:00