Patrick Stewart dies at 86 after career spanning 178 Star Trek episodes
The actor, known for Captain Picard and Professor X, passed away Wednesday following a career that included 16 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
By Camila Herrera ·
Patrick Stewart died Wednesday at the age of 86. The British actor, best known for his roles in science fiction franchises, had a career that spanned more than four decades, moving between the British stage and Hollywood film and television.
Stewart began his professional life in theater. He spent 16 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1987, he made his Broadway debut in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Peter Brook. He also performed frequently at the Royal National Theatre. When he was cast in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Los Angeles Times described him as an "unknown British Shakespearean actor."
Stewart signed a six-year contract for the series despite advice from agents that it might last only one season. Longtime friend Ian McKellen urged him to keep his focus on Shakespeare. The show ran for seven seasons and 178 episodes. It peaked at 12 million viewers per episode until the 1994 finale, which drew more than 30 million viewers. The series led to four feature films and a spinoff series, Star Trek: Picard, which ran for three seasons.
His stage discipline shaped his work ethic on the set of the Enterprise. Stewart portrayed Captain Jean-Luc Picard with a mix of authority and compassion. He later played Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men franchise. From the late 1990s onward, he appeared in seven X-Men films between 2000 and 2017. Those films grossed $3.32 billion collectively. He also appeared in two Marvel Cinematic Universe films.
Stewart returned to Broadway in 2008 to play Macbeth in a production directed by Rupert Goold. He was 68 years old at the time. In 2013, he reunited with McKellen in a double bill of No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot. The two had first shared a stage in 1977 at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Stewart grew up in a working-class family in Yorkshire. He described his childhood home as unstable, noting that his father, a World War II veteran with undiagnosed PTSD, suffered from episodes of domestic violence. Stewart’s final major film role was in Logan, where he played an ailing Professor X opposite Hugh Jackman.
The actor’s last known professional engagement was the 2013 Broadway production. He is survived by no immediate family members mentioned in public records. His death concludes a career that bridged classical theater and global pop culture.
