Steven Spielberg Makes Large Donation to James Van Der Beek’s Family GoFundMe

Steven Spielberg just made a big contribution following the death of James Van Der Beek.

The Dawson’s Creek actor passed away on Wednesday morning following a battle with colorectal cancer.

Close friends of the Van Der Beek family started a GoFundMe campaign to help his wife, Kimberly, and their six children. Throughout the actor’s illness, he had to resort to selling signed merchandise from previous projects in order to pay for medical bills. Per the GoFundMe’s description, the costs of Van Der Beek’s medical care “and the extended fight against cancer have left the family out of funds.”

As of Friday, the campaign has raised nearly $2.3 million, with the goal only being $1.5 million. One of the biggest donations was from legendary director Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, with $25,000. The donation is a particularly special one, as Van Der Beek’s Dawson Leery from Dawson’s Creek was a big fan of the filmmaker. He even had posters on his walls throughout the series’ run of Spielberg’s movies, such as Hook, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

“Dawson’s bedroom was sort of a temple to Spielberg, and so I had to write a letter to him because he retains the rights to all that stuff,” creator Kevin Williamson told Entertainment Weekly in 2018. “And I was like, ‘Please, Mr. Spielberg, you don’t know me, but I was this kid. I had this bedroom. I had all your posters in my bedroom. Can I please present Dawson the way that he really was?’ And it was really interesting, he wrote back, and he wrote the loveliest response. He was like, ‘You can use everything.’”

Additionally, Spielberg participated in the Dawson’s Creek reunion last year, which was held to benefit Van Der Beek and F Cancer. “Dawson, you made it,” Spielberg said in a video shown at the event. “Maybe someday, I will get to have a Dawson’s closet.” Van Der Beek was not in attendance due to a stomach illness, but he sent in a video, and some of his family appeared.

Other donors for the GoFundMe campaign include Wicked director Jon M. Chu, Ricki Lake, and Dancing With the Stars judge Derek Hough. Tributes have also been pouring in from fans and celebrities since news broke, such as from some of Van Der Beek’s co-stars, friends, and his DWTS partner Emma Slater, as well as those who never had the pleasure to work with him or meet him, but still admired him and always will.

Fans can donate now to the GoFundMe.