Patrick Stewart, legendary actor of ‘Star Trek’ and 'X-Men' fame, dies at 86

Patrick Stewart, the classically trained actor who added Shakespearean gravitas to the “Star Trek” and “X-Men” franchises, has died. He was 86.

Stewart died Wednesday in Los Angeles, following “a brief and poignant journey” with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy Body Dementia, spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said. Stewart’s diagnoses had not been previously disclosed.

“We lost one of the greats of stage and screen today,” Hugh Jackman, a frequent Stewart co-star in the “X-Men” universe, said on social media. “And, in my book, a tremendous friend and man. I learned so much from him. I will miss you, Patrick Stewart, all of my days.”

While best known as Professor Charles Xavier and Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the “X-Men” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series and films, respectively, Stewart spent more of his career onstage than in the X-Mansion or on the USS Enterprise.

Besides playing everyone from Claudius to Macbeth, he often performed a one-man rendition of “A Christmas Carol” and did West End and Broadway runs of Harold Pinter's “No Man's Land” and Samuel Beckett's “Waiting for Godot” in repertory with buddy Ian McKellen.

“He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love,” McKellen posted on social media.

He won three Olivier Awards, including one for playing Claudius in “Hamlet” opposite David Tennant. And he had a Grammy — in 1996 for best spoken word album for his recording of “Peter and the Wolf.”

He achieved some of the best reviews of his career when he finally tackled Macbeth for the first time. The production, under the direction of Rupert Goold, debuted in May 2007 at England’s Chichester Festival Theatre, switched to London’s West End and then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music before transferring to Broadway in 2008.

Stewart’s performance earned him his sole Tony Award nomination. The Times of London said his Macbeth was “an enthralling creation of frailty, appetite, egotism and grim humor.” The Daily Telegraph said he had turned in “a truly great performance” and The New York Times said it was “a must-see.”

“Nearly 50 years I’ve waited,” Stewart told The Associated Press in 2008. “I learned it when I was 14. I memorized all the soliloquies just because I thought they were great. And they stuck, so I didn’t have to learn those bits of the play, which is a blessing, because learning lines has now become the one curse of this job.”

Raised in Mirfield in Yorkshire, a working-class corner of northern England, the future 24th-century commander of a starship grew up without a bathroom in his house.

Stewart joined an amateur drama group at 12 and memorized Shakespeare for fun as a teen. He won a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, launching a career as a character actor.

He had been bald since he was 19 — alopecia runs in his family.

His father, a former regimental sergeant major in the British Army, was prone to outbursts of “repeated violence against my mother,” as Stewart wrote in a newspaper piece. “Violence is always a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.”

In his memoir, “Making It So,” Stewart wrote about how he and his older brother Trevor braced for the nights when their dad came home drunk and angry, and attacked their mother. “Sometimes it was with an open hand, other times a closed fist. Always he aimed for her head.”

The son would later become a patron for Refuge, an organization that provides shelter for domestic abuse victims.

“The stage would prove to be a safe space, a refuge from real life in which I could inhabit another person, living in another place and time,” he would write.

Stewart was accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company and stayed for 14 years, playing everything from Mark Antony to Henry IV to Shylock to Oberon. “People who were not in the company would say to me, ‘Give it a break. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’ And I would say, ‘To do what?‘” he told the AP. “Telly?”

Stewart eventually left to look for more varied work, including the 1981 film “Excalibur.” He had just done a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1987 when an interesting offer came along. “I found myself in Hollywood shooting a syndicated science fiction series, which I was assured would fail.”

It didn’t, of course. Thanks to Stewart’s rich baritone and noble bearing, the “Star Trek” franchise ran for seven years, 178 episodes and produced four feature films. He was known for his slogan “Make it so.”

His adoration for Shakespeare would serve him well when he began to play Jean-Luc Picard, a 24th century starship commander.

“There is a formality to the way they speak and comport themselves that remind me of numerous Shakespearean situations I’d been in onstage. I should play Jean Luc, I realized, as if he were a character in ‘Henry IV,’ which is about brave men,” Stewart wrote in his memoir.

Despite the Borg and Klingons, Stewart still managed to make room for blank verse. He established the Paramount Shakespeare Company, a workshop on Saturday and Sunday mornings for any actor interested. (Stewart revisited Picard in the TV series “Star Trek: Picard.”)

Stewart died just a few days after Walter Koenig, another “Star Trek” icon, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov on the original NBC TV show from 1966 to 1969.

“What a heartbreaking week it has been,” William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in the franchise, wrote on Instagram. “Sir Patrick Stewart was a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor. From the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise, he brought intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did.”

“Star Trek: The Next Generation” gave him higher visibility, which led to more work, including roles in the films “Conspiracy Theory,” “L.A. Story” and on Broadway, where he starred in “The Tempest,” “The Caretaker” and David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theater.” He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2010. Stewart was also an ambassador for the International Rescue Committee.

In July 1992, he and supermodel Cindy Crawford were on the cover of TV Guide’s “Top Turn-Ons,” based on a readers’ poll. In his memoir, Stewart wrote: “Absurd.”

Stewart was first introduced as the character Xavier in the original X-Men trilogy, appearing in three films from 2000 to 2006. He later returned in four more movies before Professor X’s death in 2017’s “Logan.” He reappeared in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” in 2022 and reprised the role in the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday.”

He also showed off his comedic chops aboard Seth MacFarlane’s Starz show “Blunt Talk” for two series and voiced Poop in “The Emoji Movie.” He made appearances on “Robot Chicken,” “Futurama” and “The Simpsons” (in one episode, Homer loses his hair, and Stewart tells him it’s great to be bald.) One of his last credits was with Jackman in 2026's “The Sheep Detectives.”

Later in life, he proved internet-savvy and found new fans with his humor, posing in a bath in a lobster suit and triggering memes when he posted a photo of him picking apples. When he was mistakenly outed as gay by a British newspaper, he said it was a nice change. “At least I didn’t wake up to the internet telling me I was dead again,” he tweeted.

He married Brooklyn songwriter and singer Sunny Ozell in 2013, with the actor’s “X-Men” co-star McKellen officiating. Stewart later tweeted a photo of the newlyweds in a ball pit.

He is also survived by two children, a daughter, Sophia, and a son, Daniel.

AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed.

FILE - Patrick Stewart, from left, James McAvoy, Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender appear at the UK Premiere of "X-Men: Days Of Future Past" at a central London cinema, Monday, May 12, 2014. (Photo by Jonathan Short/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart poses in his dressing room at the Lyceum Theater in New York on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, where he is starring in a production of "Macbeth." (AP Photo/Rick Maiman, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart, cast member in the Paramount+ television series "Star Trek: Picard" poses for a portrait during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 9, 2023. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart, left, and Sunny Ozell arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 10, 2024, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart arrives at the premiere of the third and final season of "Star Trek: Picard" on Feb. 9, 2023, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart attends the 84th Annual Peabody Awards on Sunday, June 9, 2024, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled weekend rallies in Iowa and Kansas, opting instead to support Republican candidates with telerallies that his party said could reach more voters in nearly two dozen states in the final days of a midterm election that could cost the GOP control of Congress.

The president traveled to South Carolina Thursday for the second time in a month, a sign of Republican anxiety about Darline Graham's ability to fend off a robust challenge from Democrat Annie Andrews for a critical U.S. Senate seat.

Voters in South Carolina have not sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly three decades. But Andrews, a pediatrician who previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress, is urging voters seeking change to “try something new for once.”

That message could resonate in an election year defined by voter frustration with the economy, gas prices and the war in Iran, putting Trump's Republican Party on defense in territory where they have rarely had to compete in recent years.

Beyond South Carolina, Republicans are entering the final days of this year's midterm elections navigating tight contests in Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Iowa and Alaska. Both parties are also closely following developments in the Mississippi Senate race.

The president projected confidence as he returned to the White House, saying, “We're going to have a strong Tuesday night.”

Trump was scheduled to hold a rally in Kansas on Saturday and in Iowa on Sunday. But the Republican National Committee announced Thursday evening that he would instead spend a “72-hour sprint” doing rallies by phone rather than in person, a move the RNC said would maximize Trump's ability to speak to voters nationwide. The RNC said telerallies are planned for nearly 20 states, and more may be announced.

It was an abrupt shift in Trump’s pledge to push through the final days of the campaign doing rally after rally to galvanize his supporters. As of Thursday, he had done 25 rallies during the month of October, falling short of a goal he had once placed north of 30.

There were signs the travel and long speeches have caught up with him. On Monday, in Corinth, Mississippi, Trump — whose voice has grown raspy — told the crowd, “God didn’t make your vocal cords to do a rally every day.”

But he bristled Thursday when a reporter asked whether he had canceled plans to travel to Kansas because of his health.

“You’ve been following me for two weeks. I feel perfect,” Trump snapped.

The president’s team was feeling more optimistic about Republican prospects and bullish on Kansas, where Democrat Adam Hamilton is challenging GOP Sen. Roger Marshall, according to a person familiar with the operation who spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal plans and strategy.

“I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas,” Trump said.

A campaign strategist with Republican Senate leadership said there was widespread curiosity about why the schedule was changing to telerallies. The strategist spoke on condition of anonymity to share the content of private conversations.

Trump, who revels in big crowds, has this month held rallies in smaller venues than many he once filled. The decision to switch to telerallies means he will be expected to speak for about 10 minutes instead of more than 90, as he does at in-person events.

Trump plans to travel to Daytona Beach, Florida, for a rally Friday. It’s not clear whether he will hold additional in-person events after that. The White House has not published his schedule for Monday, the final day of the campaign.

In South Carolina, Graham has struggled to quickly build connections with voters. The sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, she was appointed in July by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster to fill the remaining months of her brother’s term after his sudden death. In August, she became the party’s nominee to succeed him for a full six-year term.

“He was a great politician,” Trump said of Lindsey Graham, before promoting Darline Graham as his elected successor. “She’s got the gene.”

Darline Graham commended the president for having “delivered what Washington promised for decades.” She warned that Andrews “would just throw it all away."

Andrews appeared in nearby Fort Mill on Wednesday, where she said that if voters elect her and become unhappy with her performance on Capitol Hill, “you can fire me in six years.”

South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, who lost to Graham in the GOP Senate primary runoff, has criticized Graham as unqualified. Norman, who has refused to campaign with Graham, said the race is closer than it would have been had he been nominated.

Lonnie Dean Johnson of Sumter, South Carolina, supported Norman in the primary and was voting Graham out of party loyalty, albeit unenthusiastically.

“She’s on a Republican ticket. I, by and large, support the Republican platform," he said. "So, I support her and wish her well.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are optimistic about their chances of booting GOP incumbent senators, including in Ohio, with an American public frustrated by continued high costs.

“Families see more money going out the door and not enough money coming in,” said Sherrod Brown, the Democratic Senate nominee who's competing against Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted. At a rally in Toledo Thursday, Brown said Husted is “looking out for data centers and Wall Street."

Farther north, Alaska's Republican governor has ordered an investigation after The New York Times reported Wednesday that Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola's campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting another candidate with the same name as Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.

The Justice Department escalated the investigation Thursday, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

The Justice Department also issued subpoenas to California officials in the latest effort to scrutinize local election administration. A federal judge in California earlier Thursday appointed a special master to evaluate claims by the Trump administration that the state has some 20,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls.

Trump called the development in Alaska a “conspiracy” and called for Peltola to be removed from the ballot. He has cast doubt on whether Peltola would be seated in the Senate even if she won the election.

Peltola’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on the governor's order. But during a campaign stop in Soldotna, Peltola, a former congresswoman, suggested the Times’ report was a “distraction” from issues such as Sen. Sullivan’s support of the war in Iran.

The revelation in Alaska was a reminder of the volatility of the midterm campaigns' final days as both parties make decisions about how to spend time and money with control of Congress on the line.

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Sloan reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, Hannah Fingerhut in Clive, Iowa, John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Meg Kinnard, Collin Binkley and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump, left, escorts Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., off the stage after Graham spoke during a campaign rally at Rock Hill Sports and Event Center, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, in Rock Hill, S.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., waves during a campaign rally in Rock Hill, S.C., Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)

President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign rally at Rock Hill Sports and Event Center, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, in Rock Hill, S.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Dr. Annie Andrews, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, participates in a Get Out the Vote rally with other Democratic nominees in the midterm elections Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)

Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C.,speaks at a campaign rally in Rock Hill, S.C., Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)