A teacher handed Patrick Stewart The Merchant of Venice at age 12 and told him to read the part of Shylock. And the rest is history. From there, he went on to study at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (with a pit stop as a junior newspaper reporter) and then started a 27-year association with the Royal Shakespeare Company based in Stratford-upon-Avon, treading the boards as King Claudius in Hamlet, Oberon in Midsummer Night’s Dream and Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra, for which he won the 1979 Olivier for Actor of the Year in a Supporting Role. No wonder when he was offered the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard for TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation at age 47 – and was not at all a sci-fi fan – he had his reservations. But upon accepting to boldly go where he had not gone before, Stewart gave Picard gravitas and dignity on the level of a Prospero or Othello, both of whom he’d played.
On Oct. 28, 2026, Sir Patrick Stewart died, at age 86, after what his family called “a brief journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.” He was still working up until recently, and his last performance will be seen in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. The father of two and grandfather of four, Stewart was married to Sunny Ozell (his third wife) for 13 years. In a statement describing his final day, his longtime spokesperson, Kelly Bush Novak, wrote that the actor was “in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny … held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all. We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.”
Stewart’s Hollywood peers, many of whom were lifelong friends, paid their tributes, including close pal Sir Ian McKellen, who wrote: “He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and, in my case, love.” They first met as fellow members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, co-starred in the X-Men franchise (where they chose to join their trailers together), shared the stage later in life in Waiting for Godot and No Man’s Land – and McKellen officiated Stewart and Sunny’s wedding. “What I love about Patrick is that he’s so predictably myself,” McKellen told The London Standard‘s ES Magazine in 2016. “I think we are the same person.”
For most of his career, Stewart moved between stage and screen, earning three Olivier Awards, one Grammy for a children’s album and numerous Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. He was also knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010. During COVID, he started a passion project of reading a Shakespearean “Sonnet A Day” – 154 in all – to his followers after his wife told him that it brought her comfort when he recited them to her. And earlier this year, he recorded the audiobook Patrick Stewart Performs the Complete Sonnets of William Shakespeare.
Despite his prestigious theatrical training, Stewart was known to be quite the joker and, right until the end of his life and career, he remained up for anything. “As any actor my age will tell you, there are fewer and fewer available roles as we get older,” he told TV Insider in a final interview this past July. “That being said, I still continue to receive interesting offers, and I love being challenged by new work, like voicing a pig’s head in Riz Ahmed’s brilliant new series Bait. I can’t imagine ever officially ‘retiring.’ I’ll always and forever be an actor.”
The Tributes Pour in…
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