James Van Der Beek, star of Dawson’s Creek, says he has cancer
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James Van Der Beek said he is "in a good place and feeling strong".
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK – American actor James Van Der Beek, who starred in the 1990s teen TV drama Dawson’s Creek, on Nov 3 said he had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
The 47-year-old said in a post on Instagram: “I’ve been dealing with this privately until now, getting treatment and dialling in my overall health with greater focus than ever before. I’m in a good place and feeling strong.”
In an interview with People magazine, Van Der Beek said he had colorectal cancer, which develops in the tissue of the colon or rectum.
About one in 23 men are diagnosed with colorectal cancer in their lifetimes, according to the American Cancer Society. Women have a similar rate of risk.
A household heart-throb who starred in 2000s coming-of-age dramas, Van Der Beek shot to fame playing Dawson Leery, the titular character in Dawson’s Creek, which ran from 1998 to 2003 on the WB Network.
He went on to star in the film Varsity Blues, the 1999 cult classic about a high school football team. He played Jonathan Moxon or Mox, an academically gifted quarterback torn between sports and school.
Those roles fuelled a meteoric rise for Van Der Beek, who once spoke of being mobbed by throngs of screaming teenage girls just weeks after he signed his first autograph. He was among the last generation of young celebrities to find fame before iPhones, when the fodder of fandom was still largely autographs or disposable camera photos.
“Back then, you were signing some ticket stub, receipt or page of a book that somebody ripped out after scrambling for a pen,” he told entertainment news website Vulture in 2013. “In 1998, nobody had cameras on their cellphones. So if somebody was taking a picture of you or a video of you, you knew it.”
Van Der Beek attended Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, on an academic scholarship before dropping out to pursue Dawson’s Creek full time. His filmography includes some of the biggest TV drama hits of the 2000s, with appearances in Ugly Betty (2006 to 2010), One Tree Hill (2003 to 2012) and How I Met Your Mother (2005 to 2014).
Though professionally quiet since the pandemic, Van Der Beek has taken on more unique roles in recent years, including as Wesley “Diplo” Pentz, a dull but likeable music producer in the critically acclaimed mockumentary satire, What Would Diplo Do? (2017).
In 2019, he made it to the semi-finals of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars (2005 to present).
Later in 2024, Van Der Beek is set to appear in The Real Full Monty, a TV special in which a group of male celebrities will strip down to raise awareness for prostate, testicular and colorectal cancer testing and research. NYTIMES
