‘Rest in the heavens, Captain’: Star Trek and X-Men star Patrick Stewart dies aged 86

Patrick Stewart, the classically trained stage actor who scaled the Shakespearean canon and added gravitas to a Star Trek franchise and X-Men films, has died. He was 86.

Stewart, who was knighted in 2010 by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to drama, died at his Los Angeles home after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, according to a statement on his X account.

“We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife, Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia,” it said.

His death comes just days after Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov, in the original Star Trek series and seven subsequent feature films, died at the age of 90.

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 on stage 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 repertoire with his good friend Sir Ian McKellen.

McKellen became close to Stewart while working on 2000 release X-Men, eventually officiating his wedding to Sunny Ozell in 2013. He shared a moving tribute to his long-time friend on Instagram, reflecting on the Yorkshire-born performer’s journey from stage to screen and his wide-ranging impact on the arts.

“We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago, but we weren’t in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in Star Trek,” McKellen wrote.

“ ‘But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk – getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?’ Well, he took the risk, and thank goodness for us all that he did, for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (X-Men of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.

“America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire … He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.”

McKellen ended his tribute by noting that Stewart’s “farewell performance” would be seen in December upon the release of Avengers: Doomsday, in which he plays Professor X.

Stewart became an actor at 18, gaining acclaim on the stage as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company beginning in the 1960s. He spent decades working on stage and performing various roles in UK TV productions.

But it wasn’t until he was cast in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994 that he gained mainstream fame, acting into his 80s.

He leaves behind his wife Sunny Ozell and two adult children – son Daniel Stewart and daughter Sophie Stewart, whom he shares with his first wife, Sheila Falconer.

William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk alongside Stewart in Star Trek: Generations (1994), honoured the renowned performer on social media as “a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor”.

“What a heartbreaking week it has been,” Shatner wrote on Facebook. “From the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise, he brought intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did. Captain Picard stood for the best of us, and so did the man who played him. I was filled with affection and admiration for him and his work. My heart goes out to Sunny and his family. He will be deeply missed.”

Fellow Star Trek actor George Takei, who played Sulu in the original 1960s TV series, paid tribute on social media dedicated to fans across the world, “mourning the passing of a true and irreplaceable legend”.

“As Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Patrick Stewart took the starship Enterprise to places it had never gone before,” Takei wrote on Bluesky. “He inspired a whole next generation of stargazers who looked longingly ahead to a brighter future for all humanity. Our hearts are heavy, indeed. Rest in the heavens, Captain.”

Australian star Hugh Jackman also paid tribute to Stewart, noting the time they had spent together filming the X-Men films.

“We lost one of the greats of stage and screen today. 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,” the Wolverine star wrote on Instagram, paired with two photos of the actors arm-in-arm.

Born in 1940 in the Yorkshire town of Mirfield in England’s north in coal-mining country, Stewart grew up in the era of ration ­coupons, lamplighters in the streets and once-a-week baths in a zinc tub in front of the coal stove, he told Good Weekend in 2023.

His father was demobbed from the army following the end of World War II when he was five. Stewart recalls him returning hardened and abusive towards his wife after bouts of drinking. Books and then films became an escape for the young Stewart.

In his teenage years, he took acting courses, threw himself into amateur theatre and, at 17, won a place at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. The local council gave him a full scholarship.

Stewart went on to marry choreographer Sheila Falconer, have two ­children and a 20-year stage, film and TV career – until he was randomly summoned to the United States to meet Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek.

A producer had spotted Stewart lecturing American students on William Shakespeare and suggested him for a role in a new series of the ­franchise, The Next Generation. According to Stewart, the meeting didn’t go well, and Roddenberry was not a fan.

So it came as a shock when he was recalled to audition for Star Trek: The Next Generation and then cast as captain of the Enterprise.

“During ­filming [Roddenberry] would come down from his comfortable ­office and sit in his director’s chair, arms folded, ­frowning at me and clearly thinking, ‘But I didn’t want him; what’s he doing in my show?’ ” Stewart told Good Weekend.

The network salary also changed things for him.

“The cast were all buying cars: Mercedes and Audis. I bought a Honda Prelude, to the dismay of my fellow ­actors. [Co-star] Jonathan Frakes accused me of having a ­poverty mentality.”

Head of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige reminisced on the first time he met Stewart while on the set of the first X-Men film, describing it as a moment he will never forget.

“After years of knowing him as the inimitable Captain Picard, I was in awe – and he turned out to be everything I had seen on screen and more: brilliant, charming, warm, generous, with a quiet strength and gravitas. Away from the cameras, he was even more remarkable, with a wonderfully sharp sense of humour,” the studio head said in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter.

“It was a true privilege to know him and to work with him … His legacy lives on not only in decades of extraordinary work, but in the many, many people he mentored. He will be deeply missed.”

Seth MacFarlane, who worked with Stewart on comedy productions like Family Guy, Ted and American Dad!, said he was a rare actor who “could take any bit of dialogue and elevate it, making a good writer sound great, and a great writer sound masterful”.

“I remember exchanging emails with him a number of years ago when he was beginning day one of a new film,” MacFarlane wrote on Instagram. “He commented to me that he always walked onto a new set feeling like the biggest novice there. My stunned reaction was the same as anyone’s would be. I said, ‘Patrick, if you feel that way, the rest of us are screwed.’ We have lost a legendary actor today, and for many of us, a good friend. He will be deeply missed by the entire planet.”

Stewart also acted in Star Trek: Picard, a sequel to The Next Generation, featuring Picard in his post-Starfleet retirement and drawing in characters from other Star Trek shows, notably Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) from Star Trek: Voyager.

“I will never say goodbye to Jean-Luc Picard, to his ideals, to his struggles to create an honest world, an unprejudiced world. That will always remain inside me in the same way that other roles have,” Stewart told this masthead in 2022.