In Memoriam: Legendary Actor "Patrick Stewart" Dies Aged 86

 

 

The Yorkshire-born Shakespearean actor who became a global star as Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier died at his home in Los Angeles, his family said.

Patrick Stewart, the British actor who spent decades in classical theatre before becoming one of the best-known faces in science fiction as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek and Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, has died at the age of 86, his family said on Thursday 

He died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia", his longtime spokesperson, Kelly Bush Novak, said. The statement said he had been surrounded by family and friends, music, prayer, tears and laughter, and spoke of an enduring reminder of his invincible grace. 

Stewart was born in 1940 in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. He spoke publicly about growing up with a father who was violent towards his mother, and later supported the domestic-violence charity Refuge. He trained as an actor and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s, where he spent much of the next two decades on stage.

His career took a huge changed in 1987 when Robert Justman, a producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation, saw him reading Shakespeare at a lecture at UCLA and brought him in to audition, against the doubts of the franchise's creator, Gene Roddenberry. Stewart won the part of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, expecting the series to last a single season. It ran for seven seasons and was followed by four films. Picard, a captain who preferred diplomacy to force, made Stewart a star well beyond the theatre; he returned to the role in the series Star Trek: Picard from 2020 to 2023.

Then from 2000 he also played Charles Xavier, the telepathic founder of the X-Men, in Bryan Singer’s X-Men and its sequels, up to James Mangold’s Logan in 2017. Stewart said he admired both Picard and Xavier for their morality, kindness and compassion, 

Stewart never left the theatre. He played Macbeth, toured his one-man version of A Christmas Carol, and appeared with his close friend Ian McKellen in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in London and on Broadway. He was knighted in 2010 and published his memoir, Making It So, in 2023. 

He is survived by his wife, the singer Sunny Ozell, and his two children, Daniel and Sophie.