LOS ANGELES — Patrick Stewart, the Yorkshire-born stage veteran who became one of television’s most admired starship captains and later led the X-Men as Professor Charles Xavier, has died. He was 86.
His longtime spokesperson announced Thursday that Stewart died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles with his wife at his side. The statement said he had been living with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, and that family and friends had surrounded him with music and prayer in his final days.
Stewart was 47 and already well known on British stages when producers chose him to command the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation. As Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, he anchored the series for seven seasons starting in 1987. He went on to play Picard in four movies, from Star Trek Generations in 1994 through Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002, then returned for the streaming series Star Trek: Picard from 2020 to 2023.
In 2000 he took on the role of Xavier, the telepathic founder of the X-Men, and kept returning to it for more than two decades. Marvel had him back once more for Avengers: Doomsday, which is set to open in December. Marvel Studios said it was deeply saddened by the loss.
He was born July 13, 1940, in the mill village of Mirfield in West Yorkshire. He left school at 15, worked briefly as a reporter and selling furniture, and then trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966. He stayed a core member of that company until 1982.
His stage work included Macbeth, Othello, Prospero and Shylock. He won Laurence Olivier Awards in 1979 and 2009, earned a Tony nomination in 2008 for Macbeth on Broadway, and toured his one-man A Christmas Carol for years. His 1996 Grammy came for narrating Peter and the Wolf.
Co-stars from both franchises, including Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen and William Shatner, posted tributes Thursday. Stewart published a memoir, Making It So, in 2023, and his final screen credits came this year.
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