{"id":661023,"date":"2026-10-29T21:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T21:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661023\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T21:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T21:40:08","slug":"patrick-stewart-dead-star-trek-captain-x-men-superhero-was-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661023\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Stewart Dead: ‘Star Trek’ Captain, ‘X-Men’ Superhero Was 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPatrick Stewart, the sophisticated actor who brought a Shakespearean touch to\u00a0Star Trek<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0X-Men\u00a0as he made an otherworldly transformation from British stage veteran to sci-fi icon, has died. He was 86.<\/p>\n

\n\tStewart died\u00a0Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles following \u201ca brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer\u2019s disease and Lewy body dementia,\u201d longtime spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak announced.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe 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,\u201d Bush Novak wrote. \u201cWe will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the late 1980s, Stewart had decades of classical theater work in England under his belt but was unfamiliar in America when he was given command of the U.S.S. Enterprise.<\/p>\n

\n\tStar Trek: The Next Generation\u00a0producer Robert Justman happened upon a UCLA lecture featuring Stewart and witnessed him reading from Shakespeare in his trademark patrician style. Justman called the actor in for an audition against the wishes of\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0creator Gene Roddenberry, who didn\u2019t think a bald Brit could be the face of the new series.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a contentious casting process, Stewart won over the famously persnickety Roddenberry and signed a long-term contract to play Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, thinking there was no way the show would last beyond one season.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery single person I spoke to \u2014 agents, directors, screenwriters, other actors \u2014 said, \u2018Oh, don\u2019t worry about six years. You\u2019ll be lucky to make it through the first year,\u2019 \u201d Stewart\u00a0recalled<\/a>\u00a0in 2010. \u201cEverybody felt it was madness to try to revive an iconic series like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy<\/a>\u2018s\u00a0Star Trek. So, on the basis of that advice, I signed the six-year contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0referred to him as an \u201cunknown British Shakespearean actor\u201d in a story announcing his casting. Brent Spiner, who played the android Data on the show, fashioned a sign to go above Stewart\u2019s dressing room that read in bright red, \u201cWARNING: Unknown British Shakespearean Actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNext Generation\u00a0premiered in September 1987, two months after Stewart\u2019s 47th birthday, and initially struggled to catch on with\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0fans, many of whom considered the new cast to be pretenders to the throne. But after ups and downs, the series soared to new heights in 1990 with the season-three finale, \u201cBest of Both Worlds<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat episode featured the first cliffhanger in\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0history and saw Picard abducted and assimilated by an alien race known as The Borg. It was a genuinely shocking moment pulled off decades before such twists became common on the small screen.<\/p>\n

\n\tStewart also was at the center of several episodes considered among history\u2019s finest hours of sci-fi television, including the alternate timeline-focused \u201cYesterday\u2019s Enterprise\u201d in 1990 and 1992\u2019s \u201cThe Inner Light,\u201d\u00a0which had Picard live an entire lifetime, all in the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n

\n\tStewart and his cast of Americans became known as one of the closest in television, but in the early years, the theater veteran had trouble accepting the jokes that accompanied a typical 14-hour day on the set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThose guys taught me that you can do good work and have a good time at the same time,\u201d he\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in 2013. \u201cBefore that, I had always thought the two were unconnected completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNext Generation\u00a0ended in 1994 after seven seasons, going out with an Emmy nomination for outstanding drama series and spawning four films:\u00a0Star Trek: Generations\u00a0(1994), co-starring Shatner;\u00a0Star Trek: First Contact\u00a0(1996);\u00a0Star Trek: Insurrection\u00a0(1998); and\u00a0Star Trek: Nemesis\u00a0(2002), which saw Stewart face off against a then-unknown Tom Hardy as a younger clone of Picard.<\/p>\n

\n\tStewart acknowledged that\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0saw him fall victim to typecasting, so when he was offered the role of Prof. Charles Xavier in\u00a0X-Men\u00a0(2000) in the final years of\u00a0Next Generation\u2018s movie run, he was hesitant.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn adaptation of the Marvel comic books,\u00a0X-Men\u00a0was a pioneering film and helped launch a new age of superhero cinema. Stewart worked opposite longtime friend Ian McKellen, who played the villain Magneto, and appeared as Xavier in seven more films, starring in\u00a0X2: X-Men United\u00a0(2003),\u00a0X-Men: The Last Stand\u00a0(2006),\u00a0X-Men: Days of Future Past\u00a0(2014) and\u00a0Logan\u00a0(2017) and having cameos in\u00a0X-Men Origins: Wolverine\u00a0(2009),\u00a0The Wolverine\u00a0(2013) and Avengers: Doomsday (2026).<\/p>\n

\n\tPortraying Picard and Xavier for many years allowed him to explore layers upon layers with his characters, an opportunity few actors ever get.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBoth of them \u2026 I immensely admired for their morality, for their kindness, for their sensitivity, for their compassion,\u201d Stewart told<\/a>\u00a0THR\u2018s Stephen Galloway\u00a0in 2017. \u201cEven for their intellectual capacities. Playing Jean-Luc for all those years had a real impact on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter 17 years away, he returned to a familiar world to star in the CBS All Access series\u00a0Star Trek: Picard, which debuted in January 2020.<\/p>\n

\n\tStewart was born on July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, to Alfred and Gladys Stewart. His father worked as a semi-skilled laborer and was a veteran of World War II, among the last men evacuated from Dunkirk.<\/p>\n

\n\tA heavy drinker, Alfred was physically abusive toward his wife, but not his three sons. It was only decades later that Stewart learned his dad\u2019s violent behavior likely stemmed from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe youngest in the family, Stewart found himself terrified at home and often tasked with getting between his father\u2019s fists and his mother. Growing up under those circumstances led him to advocate for veterans as well as domestic abuse victims later in life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI 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 \u2014 it offered escape. I could be someone else, in another place, in another time,\u201d he\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in 2009.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt 15, he got a job at the local newspaper, The Dewsbury Reporter, where he was tasked with interviewing bereaved family members when someone would die in the town. Journalism turned out not to be his passion, and he spent much of his free time with drama groups. His editor finally told him he had to choose between acting and journalism \u2014 and he quit on the spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTo support himself, Stewart got a sales job at a furniture store, but by 18 he had won a scholarship to Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. At 26, he became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, spending much of the 1960s with the group as well as with the National Theatre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a series of roles in British film and television, he made his U.S. debut in John Boorman\u2019s King Arthur film\u00a0Excalibur\u00a0(1981), then appeared as the minstrel Gurney Halleck in David Lynch<\/a>\u2018s cult sci-fi classic\u00a0Dune\u00a0(1984).<\/p>\n

\n\tStewart received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for playing Captain Ahab in the 1998 miniseries\u00a0Moby\u00a0Dick\u00a0and for his work as King Henry II in 2003\u2019s\u00a0The Lion in Winter.<\/p>\n

\n\tA humorous guest spot on the HBO comedy\u00a0Extras, in which he portrayed a lecherous version of himself obsessed with seeing women naked, earned him another Emmy nom in 2006, and he was nominated yet again in 2010, for playing King Claudius in the Royal Shakespeare Company\u2019s\u00a0Hamlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2015-16, he starred as cantankerous British talk show host Walter Blunt on Starz\u2019s\u00a0Blunt Talk, which earned him a third Golden Globe nom. He also had a long-running gig as the voice of Avery Bullock on American Dad!<\/p>\n

\n\tHe portrayed Bosley in Elizabeth Banks\u2019 reboot of\u00a0Charlie\u2019s Angels (2019) and this year had a voice role in The Sheep Detectives.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the 2001 New Year Honours list, Queen Elizabeth II<\/a> appointed him an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and he was knighted by her in 2010. \u201cI never imagined anything like that could possibly happen to me, and in fact, it is still a significant unreality to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tStewart was married three times. He wed theater choreographer Sheila Falconer in 1966, and the pair remained together until 1990. They had two children, Daniel \u2014 who appeared in\u00a0Blunt Talk\u00a0\u2014 and Sophia. He was married to\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0producer Wendy Neuss from 2000-03 before wedding jazz musician Sunny Ozell in a 2013 ceremony officiated by McKellen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLike me, Jean-Luc has lived an unusual life that has taken him far beyond the bounds of normal human experience,\u201d he wrote in his 2023 memoir, Making It So. \u201cBut he is also someone who has remained true to his earthbound roots, for they are what gave him his identity. In the end, he feels the call of home, as do I.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Stewart, the sophisticated actor who brought a Shakespearean touch to\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0and\u00a0X-Men\u00a0as he made an otherworldly transformation from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,6584,85,399,46,5033,12119],"class_list":["post-661023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ian-mckellen","tag-il","tag-international","tag-israel","tag-obituaries","tag-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}