Patrick Stewart, Star Trek and X-Men actor, dies aged 86

Patrick Stewart, the British actor who commanded the Starship Enterprise as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and played Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, has died. He was 86.

Stewart died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, his longtime spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak told the Hollywood Reporter, after what she described as "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia". She said he had been surrounded by family and friends, live music, prayer, tears and laughter.

From Mirfield to the Royal Shakespeare Company

Stewart was born on 13 July 1940 in the industrial village of Mirfield, England, the youngest of three sons. His father Alfred was a military veteran who became a semiskilled labourer; his mother Gladys was a weaver in a textile factory. The family home had no running hot water, and he later described a childhood marred by alcoholism and domestic violence as "barely tolerable" in a 2009 article for the Guardian.

Acting became his escape. A teacher cast him as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice when he was 12, and he went on to local drama groups. After leaving school at 15 he worked as a local reporter and a furniture salesman before a local arts council funded his place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where he enrolled in 1957 at 17. He took his first professional stage role two years later and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, staying 16 years.

He made his Broadway debut in 1971 in Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream and returned two decades later with a solo A Christmas Carol. He played Macbeth, Othello, Prospero, Shylock and Mark Antony, won Laurence Olivier awards in 1979 and 2009 and a 1996 Grammy for the children's album Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf, and was nominated for a Tony and four Emmys.

Picard, Xavier and global fame

Stewart was 47 and already a fixture of the British stage when he was cast as a greying Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first live-action spin-off of the 1960s series. Seven seasons aboard the Enterprise, and catchphrases such as "engage", made him a star worldwide. He returned to the role in four films released between 1994 and 2002 and in the series Star Trek: Picard, which ran from 2020 to 2023.

His other signature part was Professor Charles Xavier, whom he played in seven X-Men films. He will be seen in the role again in December's Avengers: Doomsday. His other credits included the comedy Jeffrey, the thriller Conspiracy Theory, the horror film Green Room and voice work in Ted, Gnomeo & Juliet and The Sheep Detectives.

Tributes

William Shatner, his Star Trek predecessor, wrote on social media: "Captain Picard stood for the best of us, and so did the man who played him." George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu in the original series, said on Bluesky that Stewart had inspired a new generation of "star-gazers". Hugh Jackman, his X-Men co-star, called him "a tremendous friend and man" on Instagram. Marvel chief Kevin Feige described him as "brilliant, charming, warm, generous".

Stewart's final major stage appearance was in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land in London in 2016, and he published a memoir, Making It So, in 2023. A lifelong Huddersfield Town supporter, he was married three times: to the choreographer Sheila Falconer, with whom he had two children, Daniel and Sophie; to the Star Trek producer Wendy Neuss; and, from 2013 until his death, to the jazz musician Sunny Ozell. Ian McKellen officiated that final wedding.

Source: The Guardian.