Gavin Creel, Tony Winner for 'Hello, Dolly!,' Dies at 48 After Cancer Battle

Gavin Creel, a popular and busy leading man on Broadway, died at 48 Monday following what his partner confirmed had been a short battle with a rare, aggressive form of cancer, The New York Times reports.

Creel had been diagnosed with metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma in July.

A tenor, Creel made his Broadway debut in the musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie" in 2002 opposite Sutton Foster. He was Tony-nominated out of the gate.

Foster posted an image of the two nose-to-nose on Instagram, writing simply, "My sweet friend. I will love you forever."

Along with his signature performance — he received a second Tony nomination as Claude in "Hair" (2009) — he appeared in the shows "La Cage aux Folles" (2004), "She Loves Me" (2016), "Waitress" (2019), and "Into the Woods" (2022).

He appeared in the national tours of "Fame" (1998) and "Into the Woods" (2023), and in "Mary Poppins" (2006) and "Waitress" (2019) in London.

Creel won an Olivier for his work as Elder Price in "The Book of Mormon" (2012-2016) for its West End incarnation, and went on to win a Tony as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance as Cornelius in "Hello, Dolly!" (2019) opposite Bette Midler.

Midler wrote on Instagram, "Beloved by the #Broadway community, the radiant actor #GavinCreel has died from a rare form of cancer. He played Cornelius Hackl to my Dolly in “Hello Dolly” and I looked forward to working with him every single night. He was fantastic. I can’t believe he’s gone. What a loss."

His other awards and honors included a a Grammy, a GLAAD Media Award, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award.

On TV, he was Bill in "Eloise at the Plaza" and "Eloise at Christmastime" (both 2003) and appeared on "American Horror Stories" (2021).

He worked steadily until the end of his life, debuting a long-gestating off-Broadway show he'd written called "Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice," in November 2023. It closed in January.

Creel was born April 18, 1976, in Findlay, Ohio, where he was raised in a religious home. In a 2011 interview, Creel, who had just come out as gay, said, "I never want to disrespect my hometown or where I got my start, but it was definitely a place that didn't exactly celebrate diversity. Maybe not its fault, but, I hope young people... see that there is real possibility in dreaming and they have to take a chance on something to find real living. Whether or not it will succeed or fail is almost irrelevant. The going for it is the important part."

He is survived by his partner, Alex Temple Ward, and by his parents and two sisters.