Stars ‘shattered’ by death of beloved Broadway actor Gavin Creel at 48

Tributes are flowing for Tony award-winning actor Gavin Creel, dead at 48 just months after receiving a devastating diagnosis.

Gavin Creel, the Tony Award-winning star of Broadway musicals such as Hello, Dolly! and Hair, died Monday in New York, his partner confirmed.

He was 48.

The actor’s cause of death was metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer that he was diagnosed with in July.

Creel performed what would be his final role in the experimental musical Walk On Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice earlier this year.

Born in Findlay, Ohio, on April 18, 1976, Creel got his big break on Broadway in 2002, when he played Jimmy in Jeanine Tesori’s musical Thoroughly Modern Millie opposite Sutton Foster at the Marquis Theatre.

Creel won many awards throughout his career, including winner of the Best Actor in a Musical at the 2014 Oliviers. Picture: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images

During previews of Millie, Creel blew his knee out in the speakeasy scene, and was sidelined. Longing to be back on the boards, he struggled watching his understudy act with Foster every night.

“I felt like a jealous ex-boyfriend,” he told The Post at the time of his debut. “I was thinking, ‘I don’t want you up there with her.’ It was like I’d fallen in love with her.”

But he recovered and returned to that stage, where the tenor sang the song What Do I Need With Love? and earned himself his first Tony nomination.

Creel had a particular knack for musical comedy, and went on to star in La Cage Aux Folles,The Book of Mormon, She Loves Me, Waitress, Hello, Dolly! and most recently Into the Woods.

Creel accepts an award at the 2017 Tonys. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty

Performing onstage with Jane Krakowski at the 2016 Tony Awards. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty

Beyond Broadway, the actor performed around the world.

In London’s West End, he starred as Elder Price in Mormon and as Claude in Hair — the “Manchester, England, England” role he also played on Broadway. And the actor appeared in Stephen Sondheim’s Bounce (later Road Show) at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2003.

Creel finally won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 2017, for his performance as Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler.

The actor was beloved in the theatre community, and there was an outpouring of Broadway tributes today.

Broadway is in mourning over Creel’s death, just months after Nicholas Hunt/Getty

“Sometimes, I don’t have the right words to describe my sadness. We have lost someone far too young, far too early still in his journey and far too impactful to our creative community,” Book of Mormon star Josh Gad wrote on Instagram. “My heart breaks for his family and closest friends. This is just not fair.”

“An angel among the angels,” posted Idina Menzel. “I love you so much.”

“My sweet friend. I will love you forever,” wrote fellow Broadway star Sutton Foster.

“There are no words to describe this loss. Gavin was my first role model, idol and hero,” fellow Tony-winner and star of Dear Evan Hansen Ben Platt said on his Instagram story.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, who cast Creel to play King George III in The Hamilton Mixtape, his then-work in progress that would become the Broadway smash Hamilton, said he was “shattered” by the news of the actor’s death.

Hollywood legend Bette Midler, who worked with him on Hello Dolly, wrote: “I can’t believe he’s gone. What a loss.”

This story originally appeared on Page Six and is republished here with permission.

Originally published as Stars ‘shattered’ by death of beloved Broadway actor Gavin Creel at 48