Ian McKellen Pays Tribute to Patrick Stewart: “A Man to Rely on, Admire and in My Case, Love”

Ian McKellen is paying tribute to Patrick Stewart following news of his death at 86.

Stewart died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles following “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia,” longtime spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak announced.

“He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all,” Bush Novak wrote. “We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.”

The Oscar nominee shared a tribute on his social media platforms on Thursday, writing, “Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.”

“We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in Star Trek,” he wrote. “‘But Patrick think of your stage career in the U.K. Do you really want to risk — getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?’ Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (X-Men of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.”

McKellen and Stewart led the original X-Men franchise for 20th Century Fox, portraying Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr and Professor Charles Xavier, respectively. Their characters were infamous rivals who forged a friendship, with the latter being true of their off-screen relationship. The two will reprise their X-Men roles in Marvel’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday this December.

Outside of co-starring in the X-Men films, the two actors starred on the stage alongside one another in various West End and Broadway productions.

McKellen continued, “America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.”

The actor concluded his statement by noting Stewart’s final film, which he will also appear in: “His farewell performance in Avengers: Doomsday is yet to be seen.”

Tributes from Stewart’s co-stars poured in after his death was announced from the likes of Kevin Feige, William Shatner, Seth MacFarlane, Hugh Jackman, Minnie Driver, Rebecca Romijn and Famke Janssen.