Patrick Stewart died Wednesday, Oct. 28, at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86.
His family announced the death Thursday in a statement on his Instagram 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 read, as quoted by Playbill.
“He will be remembered for the dignity, compassion and humanity he brought to every role,” the statement said, “in his art and life.”
The statement also called him “a Knight, Chancellor, motor sport enthusiast, and lifelong Huddersfield Football fan,” Variety reported. It praised his work for human rights, survivors of domestic violence, refugees, veterans’ mental health and animal welfare, “particularly his cherished foster pitties.”
From the Royal Shakespeare Company to Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Patrick Hewes Stewart was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, on July 13, 1940. He quit school at 15, spent time as a newspaper reporter, then picked acting. His hair was gone by 18, according to Variety.
The Royal Shakespeare Company took him on in 1966. Over the next two decades he played Shylock, Oberon, Titus Andronicus and Astrov in “Uncle Vanya,” among other roles. He won his first Olivier Award in 1979 for “Antony and Cleopatra,” TheaterMania reported.
Then came “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard for all seven seasons, from 1987 to 1994, and in four feature films. He came back to the character in 2020 for “Star Trek: Picard,” which he also executive produced.
He never stopped doing theater. He adapted “A Christmas Carol” into a one-man show and played more than 40 characters in it. He earned a Tony nomination for “Macbeth” and won another Olivier in 2008 as Claudius in a “Hamlet” that starred David Tennant.
Ian McKellen, Magneto and Professor X, and a 2013 Wedding
In 2000, Stewart became Professor Charles Xavier in “X-Men,” opposite Ian McKellen as Magneto. The two became close friends while making the films, Variety reported.
The friendship moved to the stage. Stewart and McKellen starred in “Waiting for Godot” in London’s West End in 2009, then took it to Broadway in repertory with Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land.”
McKellen officiated Stewart’s 2013 wedding to the singer Sunny Ozell. In June 2015, the two men kissed on the red carpet at the London premiere of McKellen’s “Mr. Holmes,” ABC News reported at the time.
They were due on screen together one more time. Stewart reprised Xavier alongside McKellen’s Magneto in “Avengers: Doomsday,” which opens in December.
No public statement from McKellen had been reported by Thursday afternoon.
Patrick Stewart as Sterling in Paul Rudnick’s ‘Jeffrey’
In 1995, Stewart played Sterling, a gay interior decorator, in “Jeffrey,” Paul Rudnick’s comedy about a New York man who swears off sex during the AIDS crisis. Bryan Batt played Sterling’s boyfriend, Darius, a dancer living with HIV.
Roger Ebert called Sterling “a meticulously maintained middle-age man with a barbed tongue” in his review. The New York Times said Stewart delivered his lines “with a dignified brio that is only enhanced when he happens to be wearing a fuchsia beret,” the uniform of an anti-gay-bashing group in the film called the Pink Panthers, Variety recalled.
He later played “a vain, flamboyant dance instructor” in the 2015 film “Match,” according to Variety.
In 2015, Stewart defended Ashers, the Belfast bakery that refused to decorate a cake reading “Support Gay Marriage.” He said on BBC’s “Newsnight” that “it was the actual words on the cake they objected to,” the Huddersfield Examiner reported.
He later clarified his view on Facebook. He wrote that “both equality and freedom of speech are fundamental rights,” and pointed to his friendship with McKellen as he said he still supported gay rights, Gospel Herald reported.
Survivors, Knighthood and Huddersfield
Stewart was knighted in 2010 for services to drama. He served as chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, near where he grew up, from 2004 to 2015. His memoir, “Making It So,” came out in 2023.
He married three times. His first wife was the choreographer Sheila Falconer, and his second was Wendy Neuss, a producer on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
He is survived by his wife, Sunny Ozell, and by his daughter, Sophie Stewart, and son, the actor Daniel Stewart, from his marriage to Falconer.
