Gay Broadway actor and activist Gavin Creel passes away

The Tony Award-winning actor died in his home earlier this week after being diagnosed with cancer in July.

News . Written by Alice Linehan.

Gavin Creel posing with his Tony Award.
Image: a katz via Shutterstock

Tony Award-winning Broadway star and LGBTQ+ rights activist Gavin Creel has sadly passed away aged 48. The actor died at his home in Manhattan on Monday, September 30, as a result of metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a rare type of cancer that he had been diagnosed with in July.

Creel’s partner Alex Temple Ward confirmed the news to The New York Times, sparking an outpouring of condolences from fans and the theatre community alike. 

“Gavin was my first role model, idol and hero,” Ben Platt wrote on Instagram. “He showed me around backstage after I saw my first Broadway show. I couldn’t believe someone that supernaturally talented could also be every single person’s favorite human being. I wanted to sing just like him and be just like him.” 

The Tony Awards X account shared: “Today, we mourn the devastating loss of Tony Award winner Gavid Creel, whose extraordinary talent, kindness, and passion lit up the stage and our hearts.”

 

The Ohio native made his Broadway debut in 2002 as Jimmy Smith in the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, receiving a Tony nomination for that performance. He was nominated again for his role in Hair in 2009.

It wasn’t until 2017 that he won the prestigious accolade, recognised for his work as Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly!, in which he starred alongside Bette Midler. He also received the Drama Desk Award for that role.

 

Creel performed in an array of other productions, including The Book of Mormon in London, for which he won the Olivier Award. He also landed television roles, one of the most notable being in Rubber (Wo)man, a part of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story, where he played a gay man in a relationship with a character portrayed by Matt Bomer. 

 

Not only was he a supremely talented actor, but he was also an LGBTQ+ rights activist. Creel came out publicly in 2009 in an interview with Advocate, while calling for the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

“I also want to be able to get married legally, and it doesn’t make any sense for me to parade around trying to get marriage equality while not being open about who I am,” he said at the time. “It doesn’t inspire young men and women struggling with their own sexuality to be confident in who they are if I’m not confident in who I am. And if I whisper about it, then I give other people the power to whisper about it, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Additionally, when the marriage equality bill was pending in New York in 2011, Creel joined other Broadway performers in a video for the Human Rights Campaign supporting the law’s enactment. He also co-founded a pro-equality organisation, Broadway Impact, alongside fellow actor Rory O’Malley.

 

Rest in power, Gavin Creel.

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