He has encountered a number of coincidences with his name during his life: when he was young, his family lived on Van Dien Avenue; he played James Dean (the name Dean is a derivative of Van Dien), Starship Troopers, which he starred in, was filmed in Casper, Wyoming; and the character he played in Sleepy Hollow was named Van Brunt, and apparently the Van Brunts are distant relatives of the Van Die ...  show all 

He has encountered a number of coincidences with his name during his life: when he was young, his family lived on Van Dien Avenue; he played James Dean (the name Dean is a derivative of Van Dien), Starship Troopers, which he starred in, was filmed in Casper, Wyoming; and the character he played in Sleepy Hollow was named Van Brunt, and apparently the Van Brunts are distant relatives of the Van Diens.
Casper
He is the 6th Casper in his family (his son is the 7th). His father was a Navy commander/pilot; both his grandfathers were in the military, one as a Marine infantryman, the other as a naval doctor. He attended Florida's Admiral Farragut Academy, graduating third in command of his class. He went to Florida State in 1988. There he became interested in acting and moved to Los Angeles. He landed many different TV series parts. Griffin Stone in "Beverley Hill90210" (1994) and Ty Moody in "One Life to Live" (1993). His son, Cappy Van Dien, was born in September of 1993; his daughters, Grace Van Dien, in 1996, Maya Van Dien on September 20th 2001 and Celeste Van Dien on Oct 3rd 2003. His movie credits have included the title role in "James Dean: Race With Destiny" (1997), the lead (Johnny Rico) in Paul Verhoeven's hit science-fiction adventure, "Starship Troopers" (1997). He became the 20th screen Tarzan in the Warner Bros. Village Roadshow film "Tarzan and the Lost City" (1998). He then starred in "The Omega Code" with his wife Catherine Oxenberg and the "Vector file also starring India Oxenberg. Next came Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" with Johnny Depp.
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