Patrick Stewart, Star Trek and X-Men Actor, Dies at 86

Acclaimed British actor Patrick Stewart, known worldwide for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek” and Professor Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” films, has died at the age of 86. Spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said Stewart died in Los Angeles on Wednesday after a brief struggle with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.

Although his film and television roles brought him global recognition, Stewart spent much of his career onstage performing Shakespeare and other classics. His work included the roles of Claudius and Macbeth, a one-man adaptation of “A Christmas Carol”, and West End and Broadway productions of Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” alongside his longtime friend Ian McKellen.

Stewart received some of the strongest reviews of his career for his 2007 performance in “Macbeth”, which earned him his only Tony Award nomination. The Times of London praised the performance as a compelling portrayal combining frailty, appetite, egotism and dark humour.

Speaking to the Associated Press in 2008, Stewart said he had waited nearly 50 years to play the role. He recalled memorising the soliloquies at 14 simply because he admired them, adding that remembering them decades later was helpful because learning lines had become one of the most difficult parts of his work.

Stewart grew up in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, a working-class part of northern England, in a home without a bathroom. He joined an amateur drama group at 12 and memorised Shakespeare for enjoyment as a teenager. A scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School helped launch his acting career.

He developed alopecia at a young age and had been bald since he was 19. His childhood was also affected by domestic violence, with Stewart writing that his father, a former regimental sergeant major in the British Army, repeatedly attacked his mother. Stewart maintained that violence was always a choice made by a man who alone bore responsibility for it, and he later became a patron of Refuge, a charity supporting survivors of domestic abuse.

Stewart spent 14 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing characters including Mark Antony, Henry IV, Shylock and Oberon. He recalled that people outside the company sometimes urged him to take a break and work elsewhere, prompting him to ask what else he should do—television.

He eventually left and appeared in the 1981 film “Excalibur”. In 1987, shortly after performing in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, he was offered a role in a syndicated science-fiction series that he had been assured would fail.

Instead, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” ran for seven seasons and 178 episodes. Stewart became internationally recognised as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, whose command “Make it so” became one of the programme’s best-known lines.

Stewart began playing Professor Charles Xavier, leader of the X-Men, in the 2000 film “X-Men”. He returned for several sequels, including the 2017 film “Logan”, appearing alongside Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

His death came only days after that of Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov in the original “Star Trek” series, broadcast from 1966 to 1969. Queen Elizabeth II knighted Stewart in June 2010, and he also served as an ambassador for the International Rescue Committee.

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