Patrick Stewart, the gentlemanly British actor best known for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek” and later as the erudite mutant mentor Professor X in “X-Men,” has died at the age of 86, according to his spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak.
Stewart died in his Los Angeles home Wednesday night, after a “short and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia,” read a statement shared by Novak.
“We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invisible grace,” it said.
Stewart was most famed for his role in the hugely popular science fiction series “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which ran from 1987 to 1994 and charted the adventures of the crew of the Starship Enterprise as it battled against evil forces in the galaxy. The franchise yielded several spin-off movies. Stewart’s most recent turn as Picard came in the series “Star Trek: Picard,” which ran from 2020 to 2023.
William Shatner, who led the original “Star Trek” series, described him as “a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor” who “brought intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did.”
Stewart continued working into his 80s. He will appear in the highly anticipated “Avengers: Doomsday,” where he resumed his role of Professor X, the telepathic paralyzed founder of the X-Men. Marvel expressed its condolences at his death, remembering him as a “singular talent, a generous collaborator, and a true gentleman.”
An artist’s life
Stewart was born in 1940 in the Yorkshire town of Mirfield, in northern England, to a textile worker mother and soldier father. A talented actor from a young age, Stewart began performing in local youth theater groups as a child. His professional career would go on to span more than six decades.
Before becoming a stage actor, Stewart tried his hand at other jobs — working for a short time as a journalist, and later as a furniture salesman. But his passion was in the arts.
He joined the highly regarded Royal Shakespeare Company for its 1966 season and remained with it until 1982, during which time he played leading roles in many plays including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “The Merchant of Venice” and “The Winter’s Tale,” quickly developing a reputation as a critically acclaimed and deeply respected Shakespearean stage actor.
But Stewart found fame away from the stage when “Star Trek” took off in a perhaps unexpected way. Stewart said he was originally confused why the showrunners would cast “a middle-aged bald English Shakespearean actor” as the star of the series, the commanding officer of the starship USS Enterprise. The role of Picard — a thoughtful, deeply intellectual spaceship captain navigating moral quandaries and new technologies in the 24th century — catapulted the actor to new fame. His oft-repeated line, “Make it so,” became a signature tagline.
As the seven seasons of Star Trek went on, “the distinction between Jean-Luc Picard and Patrick Stewart became thinner and thinner, until it was impossible for me to know where he left off and I began,” he said in 2022. “So much of what I believed and felt went into that show.”
Decades after the show first launched, Stewart said the deep passion that fans carried for the series continued to bring him joy. “One of the delights of having done this series and played this role is that people are so attracted to the whole idea of ‘Star Trek,’” Stewart said in 1997. “I enjoy hearing how much people enjoyed the work we did … It’s always gratifying to me that this bald, middle-aged Englishman seems to connect with them.”
In 2010, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II granted him a knighthood for services to drama — giving him the title Sir Patrick Stewart — an honor he described as “the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me.”
“You must believe in yourself”
Away from the spotlight, Stewart was a close personal friend of Ian McKellen, another of Britain’s celebrated stage and screen actors, who is perhaps best known for playing Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings.” The pair became good friends when working together on the set of the 2000 movie “X-Men.” Stewart was cast as Professor X, a scientific genius who strives for peace, and McKellen as his adversary Magneto.
“I love him deeply,” Stewart said of McKellen in a 2020 interview with the Times of London. “So does my wife.” Such is the strength of their friendship that McKellen officiated Stewart’s marriage to American singer and songwriter Sunny Ozell in 2013. The couple were living together in Los Angeles at the time of Stewart’s death.
Stewart was married twice before his marriage to Ozell — first in 1966 to a British actress, Sheila Falconer, with whom he shares two children, a daughter and a son, and later in 2000 to American producer Wendy Neuss.
In addition to his success on screen, he would return repeatedly to the theater over the decades and earned three Laurence Olivier awards, the latest in 2009 for his role as Claudius in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
Though his gentle but burly delivery became something of a signature, Stewart once admitted that he “moderated” himself early in his career, reducing his delivery because he didn’t believe that he could pull off something more. Asked by AARP in 2024 if he had advice for younger actors, the theater titan said: “You must believe in yourself, and you must be brave. Take risks. Don’t just play safe.”
For more than 20 years, Stewart also lent his voice to the Seth MacFarlane animation series “American Dad.” The esteemed actor found laughs by playing against type, voicing a CIA official who was a crude sexual deviant and party animal.
Acting was both a solace and a passion for Stewart throughout his long and celebrated career.
Stewart shared his experiences of domestic violence as a child growing up, writing in The Guardian in 2009: “I managed to find my own refuge in acting. The stage was a far safer place for me than anything I had to live through at home — it offered escape. I could be someone else, in another place, in another time.”
CNN’s Zoe Sottile and David Mack contributed to this report.
