Gavin Creel, Tony Award-Winning 'Helly, Dolly!' Star, Dies At 48

NEW YORK, NY: Gavin Creel poses at the "Thoroughly Modern Millie" 15th Anniversary Reunion Concert ... [+] After Party at Opry City Stage on February 12, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/WireImage)

Gavin Creel, the musical theater actor who won a Tony Award for Hello, Dolly! and was nominated for Hair and Thoroughly Modern Millie, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 48.

Creel’s death was confirmed by his partner, Alex Temple Ward, via a publicist, Matt Polk. The cause was metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, which Creel learned he had only two months ago.

Born April 18, 1976 in Findlay, Ohio, Gavin Creel began his career in musical theater touring and doing regional work before landing the breakout role of Jimmy Smith opposite Sutton Foster in the Broadway production of Thoroughly Modern Millie.

After touring in the Chicago production of Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show, Creel made his acting debut in the 2003 film Eloise at the Plaza and its sequal, Eloise at Christmastime.

Creel returned to Broadway in 2004 in the revival La Cage aux Folles. Two years later, he made his West End debut in Mary Poppins. He returned to Broadway in 2009 in the revival of Hair and segued to London through 2010 when the production transferred to the West End. Following Hair, he starred in the world premiere of Prometheus Bound at the American Repertory Theater.

In 2014, Creel won an Olivier Award for his role as missionary Elder Price in The Book of Mormon, starring in the show’s first national tour and in London’s West End.

LONDON, ENGLAND: Gavin Creel, winner of the Best Actor in a Musical Award for 'The Book Of Mormon' ... [+] poses in the press room at the Laurence Olivier Awards at The Royal Opera House on April 13, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)

In 2017, he starred opposite Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce as Cornelius Hackl in the revival of Hello, Dolly!, for which he won the aforementioned Tony Award for best featured actor in a musical.

Creel’s other stage credits included La Cage aux Folles (2004), She Loves Me (2016), Waitress (2019), and Into the Woods (2022), among many others. On television, he appeared in two episodes of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Stories on FX on Hulu.

The Shubert Organization, the oldest professional theater company in the United States, wrote on X that the “lights on Broadway will shine a little less” after Creel’s death.

SAG-AFTRA, the actors union that Creel was a member of, remarked that one of “Broadway’s brightest lights has left us.”

Other tributes on social media include...

“I looked forward to working with him every single night. He was fantastic. I can’t believe he’s gone. What a loss,” wrote Bette Midler on X.

Idina Menzel shared a photo of Creelm on Instagram, writing, “Sweet sweet Gavin Creel. An angel among the angels.”

“Rest now @realgavincreel,” Glee alum Lea Michele wrote on Instagram. “Sending my love and prayers to his family and all those who were lucky enough to know his light.”