Patrick Stewart, Shakespearean actor turned ‘Star Trek’ and ‘X-Men’ star, dies

Patrick Stewart, who rose from poverty in England to become an accomplished Shakespearean stage actor and then achieved global stardom as the erudite Captain Jean-Luc Picard in TV’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the telepathic professor Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” movies, has died at the age of 86.

Stewart, knighted in 2010 by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to drama, died at his home in Los Angeles, according to a statement on his X account.

“We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia,” it said.

Actor Patrick Stewart, who first found acclaim as a Shakespearean actor before making an unlikely career pivot to TV that would bring him his greatest fame, playing a noble starship captain on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” died at his home in Los Angeles, according to a statement on his X account. | RYAN PFLUGER / THE NEW YORK TIMES

Stewart became an actor at age 18 and gained acclaim on the stage as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company beginning in the 1960s. But it was not until after he was hired at age 47 for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — a TV series that ran from 1987 to 1994 as a sequel to the original 1960s “Star Trek” — that he gained mainstream fame, acting into his 80s.

“Make it so,” his character Picard often said, instructing a subordinate to carry out a command, or sometimes deploying the similar catchphrase, “Engage.”

It was a role he had debated even taking after his longtime friend and fellow Shakespearean Ian McKellen advised him to spurn “Star Trek” and remain in theater. Stewart did take the role and became both a fan favorite and an indispensable part of a lucrative sci-fi franchise, playing Picard not only in 176 episodes over seven seasons of that series but also in several “Star Trek” films and in the later streaming series “Star Trek: Picard” that began airing in 2020 when he was 79.

“As the seven seasons of TNG (“The Next Generation“) went by, 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. So much of what I believed and felt went into that show,” Stewart told The Guardian newspaper in 2022.

Stewart also initially balked at being cast as the wheelchair-using mutant Professor X in the “X-Men” movies, based on the popular Marvel comic book character.

“I said, ’Look, I know this isn’t science fiction, but it’s fantasy, and I’ve done that.’ But they persuaded me that it wouldn’t be like ’Star Trek,’ so I did it. And yet again I was proved wrong,” Stewart told The Guardian.

He became a critical part of another big-money franchise, starting with the first entry “X-Men” in 2000 and followed by several more, including the 2022 Marvel movie “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” He appeared alongside McKellen, who played the villain Magneto, in some of the “X-Men” films.

Stewart, playing Charles Xavier, took part in the filming of the highly anticipated “Avengers: Doomsday” and will appear in the Marvel film that is due to hit theaters in December. Marvel Studios paid tribute to Stewart on Thursday in a statement, calling him “a singular talent, a generous collaborator and a true gentleman.”

Acting was safe space

Stewart was born on July 13, 1940, in the English town of Mirfield in Yorkshire. He was raised in poverty, with a father who he said returned from World War II an alcoholic who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and physically abused Stewart’s mother. Stewart recalled putting his body between his father and mother to try to protect her.

As a child, Stewart said, acting became a “safe space” after a schoolteacher introduced him to Shakespeare — specifically “The Merchant of Venice” — during a class when he was 12. He started losing his hair at age 17 and was bald by 19. He was embarrassed at the time, but eventually embraced it.

“Star Trek,” created by Gene Roddenberry, presented a hopeful vision of the future, with humankind venturing into the cosmos in spaceships exceeding the speed of light and encountering alien races. The enduring popularity of the original series and the success of spinoff films prompted Roddenberry to create “The Next Generation” sequel series.

The Picard character was the opposite of the swashbuckling and sometimes unintentionally buffoonish Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, of the original series — envisioned as more cerebral and disciplined, though sometimes coming across as stuffy, humorless, or self-important.

Stewart recalled being a little bit too serious toward his cast mates early on.

“I tell the story of calling a meeting of my principal fellow cast members and telling them that I thought we were not disciplined enough, that we should not be fooling about on the set as much as we were but taking everything seriously,” Stewart told The New Yorker in 2023.

“And one of the cast members said, ’Oh, come on, Patrick, we’ve got to have some fun.’ And I thumped the chair and said, ’We are not here to have fun’ — which they have never let me forget. They taught me so much about loosening up and being freer,” Stewart added.

Stewart also felt the series improved as it went along, faulting his own portrayal of Picard in the first two seasons.

“I found it lacking intimacy. It was very authoritative, but there were few other qualities in him,” Stewart said, adding that his work got better in subsequent seasons.

In fact, the finest work for the entire cast may have been the two-part, time-bending series finale.

He became Sir Patrick Stewart when he was knighted by the queen at Buckingham Palace in 2010. He told reporters that his heroes were British actors Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Alec Guinness, who also had been knighted, adding that being “in that company is the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me.”

Stewart was married three times and had two children. His third marriage, in 2013, was to American musician Sunny Ozell.