British actor Patrick Stewart, best known for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, died at his home in Los Angeles on 28 October 2026 at the age of 86 after a brief period of Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia.
Born on 13 July 1940 in Mirfield, UK, Patrick Stewart had acted in several amateur theater companies, and at the age of 15 he left school. After working as a journalist, he chose acting. By the age of 18 he had lost his hair. He had pursued an acting career at the Library Theater in Manchester before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966.
Despite some work in film and television, the actor had acted in over twenty theater productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he played the role of Astrov in Uncle Vanya in 1974, the role of Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1977, the role of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 1978 and the title role in Titus Andronicus in 1981.
On British television, in 1975 he starred in the BBC miniseries North & South, an adaptation of the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. He later played the role of Sejanus in the miniseries Io Claudio Imperatore, while from 1981 to 1983 he played the role of a hospital psychiatrist in the BBC TV series Maybury.
He then made his first steps in fantasy and science fiction cinema in the films Excalibur (1981) by John Boorman, the adaptation of the legend of King Arthur where he played the role of Leondegrance, and Dune (1984) by David Lynch, where he played the role of Gurney Halleck, a high-ranking officer of the House of Atreides who became Paul's (Kyle MacLachlan) trusted lieutenant.
Stewart's life changed dramatically when he joined the cast of the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, where he played Captain Jean-Luc Picard from 1987 to 1994.
The actor had also played the character in the films Star Trek: Generations (where he starred alongside William Shatner), Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis.
From 2020 to 2023 Stewart reprized the role in the TV series Star Trek: Picard.
In the X-Men film saga, respectively in the films X-Men (2000), X-Men 2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), of the evil Magneto. The new chapter will be released in cinemas on December 16, 2026.
The actor had also acted in comedies, such as Crazy in Beverly Hills (1992) with Steve Martin, where he played a snobbish waiter, Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) by Mel Brooks, where he played the role of King Richard, and Jeffrey (1995). In 2015 he then appeared in the films Match, based on the play by Stephen Belber, where he played a vain and eccentric dance instructor, and in the horror thriller Green Room by Jeremy Saulnier, where he played the leader of a gang of neo-Nazis.
He had also starred in the TV series Blunt Talk, which told the story of an English television journalist with drug addiction problems who moved to Los Angeles to host a talk show.
In 1994 he presented the program Saturday Night Live.
He had also voiced the animated TV series The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad and had lent his voice to the narrator in the comedies Ted (2012) and Ted 2 (2015) by Seth McFarlane and to the character of Sir Ritchfield in the animated film Sheep in Disguise (2026). Additionally, he had voiced several video games associated with the Star Trek and X-Men franchises.
After the broadcast of the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the actor continued his activity in the theater. In 1987 at the Young Vic he played the role of George in the show Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a role he reprized in 2001 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. He later appeared in Los Angeles and on Broadway in the Christmas productions of the one-actor version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, which he adapted.
Still on theatre, in 1996 on Broadway he played the role of Prospero in The Tempest by William Shakespeare, in 1997 at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington he played the lead in a "photonegative" staging of Othello and in 2000 once again on Broadway he starred in the show The Ride Down Mt. Morgan. In Great Britain he starred in Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth and, in 2008, in David Tennant's Hamlet, for which he won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Together with his colleague and dear friend Ian McKellen he starred respectively in 2009 in the West End in the show Waiting for Godot and in 2014 on Broadway in both Beckett's opera and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land.
He had received four Emmy Award nominations, won three Olivier Awards for work in the theater and earned a Tony Award nomination.
