By Mark Kennedy
British actor Patrick Stewart, known for his work in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the X-Men film franchise, has died aged 86.
Stewart died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, following “a brief and poignant journey” with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy Body Dementia, spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said.
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 catch phrase, “Engage.”
It was a role he had debated even taking after his longtime friend and fellow Shakespearen Ian McKellen advised him to spurn Star Trek and remain in theatre.
Stewart did take the role and became both a fan favourite 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 baulked 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.
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.
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.
-with Reuters
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