LOS ANGELES, July 3 -- He filmed the role months before the end, playing a school superintendent who gets caught in a lie. The show premiered. The cameras were stilled. And James Van Der Beek, who died in February 2026 at 48 from colorectal cancer, was not there to see any of it.

His final screen performance is streaming now on Prime Video. It is in Elle, the Legally Blonde prequel series that debuted this month with Lexi Minetree as Elle Woods and Reese Witherspoon as executive producer. Van Der Beek played Dean Wilson, a school district superintendent and mayoral candidate who presents himself as a community pillar until Elle exposes his involvement in an extortion scheme with the school's principal. The character faces arrest in the s...