Sir Patrick Stewart, 'Star Trek' Captain and 'X-Men' Professor, Dies at 86
Sir Patrick Stewart, the Shakespeare-trained actor who commanded the Enterprise as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and led the X-Men as Professor Charles Xavier, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86.
LOS ANGELES — Sir Patrick Stewart, the British actor whose voice and bearing carried him from the Shakespearean stage to the captain's chair of the starship Enterprise, died Wednesday, Oct. 28, at his home in Los Angeles, his family announced Thursday. He was 86.
In a statement posted to Stewart's social media accounts Thursday, family spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said he died “in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny” following “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.” Neither diagnosis had been publicly disclosed before the announcement.
For a generation of television viewers, Stewart was Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the role he played on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” from 1987 to 1994 and returned to in “Star Trek: Picard” from 2020 to 2023. On film, he was Professor Charles Xavier, the telepathic founder of the X-Men, and his final screen role is a return as Xavier in “Avengers: Doomsday,” which reaches theaters Dec. 18, 2026.
Patrick Stewart was born July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, the son of a textile worker and a soldier, and he rose from poverty to a stage career with the Royal Shakespeare Company before television and film made him famous worldwide. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 2010 for services to drama.
Tributes arrived Thursday from across the two franchises that defined his popular career: Hugh Jackman, William Shatner and Famke Janssen were among those who posted remembrances. Stewart is survived by his wife, the singer Sunny Ozell, whom he married in 2013, and by his two children, Daniel and Sophie. The family asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Fund and the Alzheimer's Foundation of America.
Photo: Patrick Stewart at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015. (Bill Ingalls / NASA, public domain)
