Patrick Stewart, a perceptive patriarch in 'Star Trek' and 'X-Men,' dies at 86

Patrick Stewart was trained as a Shakespearean actor, and he brought that gravitas to all of his roles, along with a playful sense of purpose. He was knighted in 2010. Jack Taylor/Getty Images hide caption

Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Patrick Stewart was trained as a Shakespearean actor, and he brought that gravitas to all of his roles, along with a playful sense of purpose. He was knighted in 2010.

Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Sir Patrick Stewart's most famous characters tackled concepts such as honor, morality and courage. He played Professor X in the X-Men franchise and Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the starship USS Enterprise on the show Star Trek: The Next Generation and its later spinoff, Picard.

Stewart died Wednesday at 86. A post on his Facebook and Instagram pages said he died at home in Los Angeles of "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia."

Although beloved for playing compassionate father figures who united families of misfits, Stewart's own upbringing in Yorkshire, England, was harsh. He remembered his father as alcoholic and abusive. He found solace in school, and eventually, in Shakespeare. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, and debuted on Broadway in 1970 in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"To stand in the middle of an empty stage in an empty theater and feel that I was at home was everything," he told NPR in 2023. "But it took a while for me to get there."

Patrick Stewart in 1970, during rehearsals for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Stewart played alongside some of the best Shakespeareans of his time, including Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. He was lecturing on Shakespeare at UCLA when his name came up for the lead in a new series of Star Trek.

"Don't do this, Patrick," he remembered McKellen advising him. "You're a very good stage actor. That's where you ought to be. Don't do it."

But Stewart's agent had reassured him that the show was unlikely to make it past the first season. As the actor recalled to NPR, he was encouraged to take what he believed to be a quick and easy job. "'Do six months' work. Make some money for the first time in your life and get well known. Get a suntan, and go home.' And I thought, yeah, that doesn't sound too bad. I could live with that."

But Star Trek: The Next Generation was a tremendous hit. It aired for seven seasons, from 1987 to 1994. Stewart was embraced by fans, who adored the character's penchant for Earl Grey tea and cool-headed leadership, with such signature phrases as "Engage!" and "Make it so!"

Patrick Stewart and Levar Burton in the 1998 film Star Trek: Insurrection. Getty Images hide caption

Getty Images

But success on the Starship Enterprise came at a cost. Throughout his career, Stewart portrayed only a handful of Shakespeare's leading men. He put some of that character energy into an award-winning, one-man version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which Stewart played more than 40 roles.

By the beginning of the 21st century, Stewart had re-established himself on stage while also lending his voice to numerous big-budget animated films. He went on to dominate another blockbuster franchise, the X-Men, beginning in 2000. He'll appear for the last time in his role as Professor Charles Xavier in the upcoming movie Avengers: Doomsday.

As for his signature role, Stewart thought he was done playing Picard. But a team of producers — including writer Michael Chabon — had different ideas. They pitched him a new show, Star Trek: Picard, that begin streaming on the CBS service, now called Paramount+, in 2020.

"I would've been happy just shaking Patrick Stewart's hand and telling him how much I loved him on Star Trek," Chabon told NPR. "But to be able to actually write words that he will speak and act is — it's incredible."

In the show, Picard is struggling with the psychological damage that led to leaving Starfleet. The performance is vintage Stewart. His character is keen-eyed, haunted, weary, yet joyful. While this Picard was trapped in the past, Patrick Stewart spent his career charting the future.