Gavin Creel, Beloved Tony-Winning Star of Hello, Dolly!, Thoroughly Modern Millie and More, Dies at 48

Tony Award winner Gavin Creel, who launched his celebrated Broadway career as Jimmy Smith in Thoroughly Modern Millie and whose stage credits include She Loves Me, Hello, Dolly! and Into the Woods, died at home in Manhattan on September 30. His death was confirmed by his partner, Alex Temple Ward. He had been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of sarcoma in July, receiving treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering before moving to hospice care at home. He was 48.

Creel was born on April 18, 1976 in Findlay, Ohio. He and his two older sisters were raised Methodist, a culture the actor has said kept him in the closet until the age of 25. “They were wonderful,” Creel said in a 2023 interview with The Daily Beast, remembering how his parents reacted to learning that he was gay. “[My mom] said, ‘Just don’t go marching in any parades.’ Seven or eight years later my mom and dad marched on Washington for equality with me.”

Creel graduated from the University of Michigan’s musical theater program in 1998 and got his earliest professional credits in the resident cast of Pittsburgh CLO, a repertory theater. In 1998, he joined the national tour of Fame as Nick Piazza, performing in other regional productions before settling in New York City in the early 2000s. He made his off-Broadway debut in 2001 in the ensemble of Bat Boy: The Musical at the Union Square Theatre.

His breakthrough performance came in 2002, when he landed the lead role of Jimmy Smith in the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, performing opposite Sutton Foster in her own star-making role and earning his first of three career Tony nominations. “I fell in love with her,” Creel said of Foster to Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek on a 2012 episode of Show People “I have worked with incredible women, but chemistry with someone like that is so rare.”

After Millie, Creel went on to play Jean-Michel in the 2004 revival of La Cage aux Folles, Claude in the 2009 revival of Hair, for which he received a Tony nomination, Elder Price in The Book of Mormon, a role he had previously played on tour, and Steven Kodaly in the 2016 revival of She Loves Me—the smooth-talking love interest of Ilona Ritter, played by Jane Krakowski.

Gavin made his West End debut in 2006 as Bert in Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s Mary Poppins and reprised his role in the West End transfer of Hair in 2010. Creel then went on to win the 2014 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for playing Elder Price in The Book of Mormon.

In 2017, he landed the role of Cornelius Hackl in Jerry Zaks’ 2017 revival of the Jerry Herman musical Hello, Dolly!, starring Bette Midler. His performance earned him that season’s Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical, an award that was presented by Foster. In his acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to his alma mater, the University of Michigan.

“My education there as a young person changed my life forever,” he said. “My professors, my classmates. They instilled in me an appreciation for what it is to be an artist and what it is to be lucky to be a part of this incredible community.”

Creel appeared in two Broadway musicals opposite his friend Sara Bareilles. He performed the role of Dr. Pomatter in Bareilles’ musical, Waitress, on Broadway in 2019 and in the West End in 2020. In 2022, Creel was cast as Cinderella’s Prince and the Wolf in the Encores! production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, going on to play the role on Broadway and on tour.

Throughout the pandemic, Creel developed the autobiographical musical Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice. It was crafted originally for the MetLiveArts series and later received an off-Broadway production with MCC Theater in 2023—his theatrical songwriting debut. Inspired by Creel’s first trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the piece explored the actor’s nagging midlife questions about identity, relationships and where he fit as an artist among the museum’s great works.

“You spend the first half of your life heading towards something you hope and dream for—and, if you find it or land in it, you can sometimes think, ‘This isn’t it,’” he said. Creating Walk on Through, he said, helped him manage feelings of depression that he had during this time he called an “intermission” —a reorganizing pause before a period of self-renewal. “I hope to be growing him for the rest of this second half of my life.”

He is survived by his mother Nancy Clemens Creel and father James Wiliiam Creel, his sisters Heather Elise Creel and Allyson Jo Creel and her wife Jen Kolb, his partner Alex Temple Ward and his dog Nina. The funeral service is private, and a memorial will be planned at a future date. The family requests that gifts in Gavin’s memory be made to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids.