Patrick Stewart, the classically trained stage actor who scaled the Shakespearean canon and added gravitas to a \u201cStar Trek\u201d franchise and the \u201cX-Men\u201d films, has died. He was 86.<\/p>\n
Stewart died Wednesday in Los Angeles, following \u201ca brief and poignant journey\u201d with Alzheimer\u2019s disease and Lewy Body Dementia, spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said.<\/p>\n
While best known as Professor Charles Xavier and Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the \u201cX-Men\u201d and \u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation\u201d series and films, respectively, Stewart spent more of his career onstage than in the X-Mansion or on the USS Enterprise.<\/p>\n
Besides playing everyone from Claudius to Macbeth, he often performed a one-man rendition of \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d and did West End and Broadway runs of Harold Pinter\u2019s \u201cNo Man\u2019s Land\u201d and Samuel Beckett\u2019s \u201cWaiting for Godot\u201d in repertoire with buddy Ian McKellen.<\/p>\n
He achieved some of the best reviews of his career when he finally tackled Macbeth for the first time. The production, under the direction of Rupert Goold, debuted in May 2007 at England\u2019s Chichester Festival Theatre, switched to London\u2019s West End and then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music before transferring to Broadway in 2008.<\/p>\n
Stewart\u2019s performance earned him his sole Tony Award nomination. The Times of London said his Macbeth was \u201can enthralling creation of frailty, appetite, egotism and grim humor.\u201d The Daily Telegraph said he had turned in \u201ca truly great performance\u201d and The New York Times said it was \u201ca must-see.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNearly 50 years I\u2019ve waited,\u201d Stewart told The Associated Press in 2008. \u201cI learned it when I was 14. I memorized all the soliloquies just because I thought they were great. And they stuck, so I didn\u2019t have to learn those bits of the play, which is a blessing, because learning lines has now become the one curse of this job.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Patrick Stewart attends the 84th Annual Peabody Awards on Sunday, June 9, 2024, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP, File) Patrick Stewart attends the 84th Annual Peabody Awards on Sunday, June 9, 2024, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP, File) Starship commander grew up without a toilet<\/p>\n
Raised in Mirfield in Yorkshire, a working class corner of northern England, the future 24th century commander of a starship grew up without a bathroom in his house.<\/p>\n
Stewart joined an amateur drama group at 12 and memorized Shakespeare for fun as a teen. He won a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, launching a career as a character actor. <\/p>\n
He was bald since he was 19 \u2014 alopecia runs in his family.<\/p>\n
His father, a former regimental sergeant major in the British Army, was prone to outbursts of \u201crepeated violence against my mother,\u201d as Stewart wrote in a newspaper piece. \u201cViolence is always a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his memoir, \u201cMaking It So,\u201d Stewart wrote about how he and his older brother Trevor braced for the nights when their dad came home drunk and angry, and attacked their mother. \u201cSometimes it was with an open hand, other times a closed fist. Always he aimed for her head.\u201d<\/p>\n
The son would later became a patron for Refuge, an organization that provides shelter for domestic abuse victims.<\/p>\n
Loving Shakespeare proved fruitful as Capt. Picard <\/p>\n
\u201cThe stage would prove to be a safe space, a refuge from real life in which I could inhabit another person, living in another place and time,\u201d he would write.<\/p>\n
Stewart was accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company and stayed for 14 years, playing everything from Mark Anthony to Henry IV to Shylock to Oberon. \u201cPeople who were not in the company would say to me, \u2018Give it a break. Why don\u2019t you go somewhere else?\u2019 And I would say, \u2018To do what?\u2018\u201d he told the AP. \u201cTelly?\u201d<\/p>\n
Stewart eventually left to look for more varied work, including the 1981 film \u201cExcalibur.\u201d He had just done a production of \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u201d in 1987 when an interesting offer came along. \u201cI found myself in Hollywood shooting a syndicated science fiction series, which I was assured would fail.\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t, of course. Thanks to Stewart\u2019s rich baritone and noble bearing, the \u201cStar Trek\u201d franchise ran for seven years, 178 episodes and produced four feature films. He was known for his slogan \u201cMake it so.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Star Trek: Picard This image released by Paramount+ shows Patrick Stewart as Picard, left, and Ed Speleers as Jack Crusher in the “No Win Scenario” episode of “Star Trek: Picard.” (Trae Patton\/Paramount+ via AP) <\/p>\n
His adoration for Shakespeare would serve him well when he began to play Jean-Luc Picard, a 24th century starship commander.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a formality to the way they speak and comport themselves that remind me of numerous Shakespearean situations I\u2019d been in onstage. I should play Jean Luc, I realized, as if he were a character in \u2018Henry IV,\u2019 which is about brave men,\u201d Stewart wrote in his memoir.<\/p>\n
Despite the Borg and Klingons, Stewart still managed to make room for blank verse. He established the Paramount Shakespeare Company, a workshop on Saturday and Sunday mornings for any actor interested. (Stewart revisited Picard in the TV series \u201cStar Trek: Picard.\u201d)<\/p>\n
The show gave him a higher visibility, which led to more work, including roles in the films \u201cConspiracy Theory,\u201d \u201cL.A. Story\u201d and Broadway, where he starred in \u201cThe Tempest,\u201d \u201cThe Caretaker\u201d and David Mamet\u2019s \u201cA Life in the Theater.\u201d He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2010. Stewart was also an ambassador for the International Rescue Committee.<\/p>\n
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patrick stewart Patrick Stewart arrives at the premiere of the third and final season of “Star Trek: Picard” on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP) A brave and commanding persona. But sexy?<\/p>\n
In July 1992, he and supermodel Cindy Crawford were on the cover of TV Guide\u2019s \u201cTop Turn-Ons,\u201d based on a readers\u2019 poll. In his memoir, Stewart wrote: \u201cAbsurd.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stewart was first introduced as the character Xavier in the original X-Men trilogy, appearing in three films from 2000 to 2006. He later returned in four more movies before Professor X\u2019s death in 2017\u2019s \u201cLogan.\u201d He reappeared in \u201cDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness\u201d in 2022.<\/p>\n
He also showed off his comedic chops aboard Seth MacFarlane\u2019s Starz show \u201cBlunt Talk\u201d for two series and voiced Poop in \u201cThe Emoji Movie.\u201d He made appearances on \u201cRobot Chicken,\u201d \u201cFuturama\u201d and \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d (in one episode, Homer loses his hair, and Stewart tells him it\u2019s great to be bald.)<\/p>\n
Later in life, he proved Internet-savvy and found new fans with his humor, posing in a bath in a lobster suit and triggering memes when he posted a photo of him picking apples. When he was mistakenly outed as gay by a British newspaper, he said it was a nice change. \u201cAt least I didn\u2019t wake up to the internet telling me I was dead again,\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n
He married Brooklyn songwriter and singer Sunny Ozell in 2013, with the actor\u2019s \u201cX-Men\u201d co-star McKellen officiating. Stewart later tweeted a photo of the newlyweds in a ball pit.<\/p>\n
He also is survived by two children, a daughter, Sophia, and a son, Daniel.<\/p>\n
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