Patrick Stewart, legendary actor of ‘Star Trek’ and 'X-Men' fame, dies
at 86
[October 30, 2026]
By MARK KENNEDY
Patrick Stewart, the classically trained actor who added Shakespearean
gravitas to the “Star Trek” and “X-Men” franchises, has died. He was 86.
Stewart died Wednesday in Los Angeles, following “a brief and poignant
journey” with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy Body Dementia, spokesperson
Kelly Bush Novak said. Stewart’s diagnoses had not been previously
disclosed.
“We lost one of the greats of stage and screen today,” Hugh Jackman, a
frequent Stewart co-star in the “X-Men” universe, said on social media.
“And, in my book, a tremendous friend and man. I learned so much from
him. I will miss you, Patrick Stewart, all of my days.”
While best known as Professor Charles Xavier and Captain Jean-Luc Picard
from the “X-Men” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series and films,
respectively, Stewart spent more of his career onstage than in the
X-Mansion or on the USS Enterprise.
Besides playing everyone from Claudius to Macbeth, he often performed a
one-man rendition of “A Christmas Carol” and did West End and Broadway
runs of Harold Pinter's “No Man's Land” and Samuel Beckett's “Waiting
for Godot” in repertory with buddy Ian McKellen.
“He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to
admire and in my case, love,” McKellen posted on social media.
He won three Olivier Awards, including one for playing Claudius in
“Hamlet” opposite David Tennant. And he had a Grammy — in 1996 for best
spoken word album for his recording of “Peter and the Wolf.”
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’s Chichester Festival
Theatre, switched to London’s West End and then moved to the Brooklyn
Academy of Music before transferring to Broadway in 2008.
Stewart’s performance earned him his sole Tony Award nomination. The
Times of London said his Macbeth was “an enthralling creation of
frailty, appetite, egotism and grim humor.” The Daily Telegraph said he
had turned in “a truly great performance” and The New York Times said it
was “a must-see.”
“Nearly 50 years I’ve waited,” Stewart told The Associated Press in
2008. “I learned it when I was 14. I memorized all the soliloquies just
because I thought they were great. And they stuck, so I didn’t have to
learn those bits of the play, which is a blessing, because learning
lines has now become the one curse of this job.”
Starship commander grew up without a toilet
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.
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.
He had been bald since he was 19 — alopecia runs in his family.
His father, a former regimental sergeant major in the British Army, was
prone to outbursts of “repeated violence against my mother,” as Stewart
wrote in a newspaper piece. “Violence is always a choice a man makes and
he alone is responsible for it.”
In his memoir, “Making It So,” 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. “Sometimes it was with an open hand,
other times a closed fist. Always he aimed for her head.”
The son would later become a patron for Refuge, an organization that
provides shelter for domestic abuse victims.
Loving Shakespeare proved fruitful as Capt. Picard
“The 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,”
he would write.
Stewart was accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company and stayed for
14 years, playing everything from Mark Antony to Henry IV to Shylock to
Oberon. “People who were not in the company would say to me, ‘Give it a
break. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’ And I would say, ‘To do what?‘”
he told the AP. “Telly?”
Stewart eventually left to look for more varied work, including the 1981
film “Excalibur.” He had just done a production of “Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?” in 1987 when an interesting offer came along. “I found
myself in Hollywood shooting a syndicated science fiction series, which
I was assured would fail.”
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Patrick Stewart, cast member in the Paramount+ television series
"Star Trek: Picard" poses for a portrait during the Winter
Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., on
Jan. 9, 2023. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)
 It didn’t, of course. Thanks to
Stewart’s rich baritone and noble bearing, the “Star Trek” franchise
ran for seven years, 178 episodes and produced four feature films.
He was known for his slogan “Make it so.”
His adoration for Shakespeare would serve him well when he began to
play Jean-Luc Picard, a 24th century starship commander.
“There is a formality to the way they speak and comport themselves
that remind me of numerous Shakespearean situations I’d been in
onstage. I should play Jean Luc, I realized, as if he were a
character in ‘Henry IV,’ which is about brave men,” Stewart wrote in
his memoir.
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 “Star Trek: Picard.”)
Stewart died just a few days after Walter Koenig, another “Star
Trek” icon, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov on the original NBC TV
show from 1966 to 1969.
“What a heartbreaking week it has been,” William Shatner, who played
Captain James T. Kirk in the franchise, wrote on Instagram. “Sir
Patrick Stewart was a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor.
From the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise, he brought
intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he
did.”
“Star Trek: The Next Generation” gave him higher visibility, which
led to more work, including roles in the films “Conspiracy Theory,”
“L.A. Story” and on Broadway, where he starred in “The Tempest,”
“The Caretaker” and David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theater.” He was
knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2010. Stewart was also an
ambassador for the International Rescue Committee.
A brave and commanding persona. But sexy?
In July 1992, he and supermodel Cindy Crawford were on the cover of
TV Guide’s “Top Turn-Ons,” based on a readers’ poll. In his memoir,
Stewart wrote: “Absurd.”
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’s death in 2017’s
“Logan.” He reappeared in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of
Madness” in 2022 and reprised the role in the upcoming “Avengers:
Doomsday.”
He also showed off his comedic chops aboard Seth MacFarlane’s Starz
show “Blunt Talk” for two series and voiced Poop in “The Emoji
Movie.” He made appearances on “Robot Chicken,” “Futurama” and “The
Simpsons” (in one episode, Homer loses his hair, and Stewart tells
him it’s great to be bald.) One of his last credits was with Jackman
in 2026's “The Sheep Detectives.”
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.
“At least I didn’t wake up to the internet telling me I was dead
again,” he tweeted.
He married Brooklyn songwriter and singer Sunny Ozell in 2013, with
the actor’s “X-Men” co-star McKellen officiating. Stewart later
tweeted a photo of the newlyweds in a ball pit.
He is also survived by two children, a daughter, Sophia, and a son,
Daniel.
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AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed.
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