Star Trek and X-Men star Patrick Stewart dies aged 86

Mark KennedyOctober 30, 2026 — 7:03amPatrick Stewart, the classically trained stage actor who scaled the Shakespearean canon and added gravitas to a Star Trek franchise and the X-Men films, 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. His X account also carried news of Stewart’s death.Patrick Stewart arrives at the premiere of the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard in 2023.AP Photo/Richard ShotwellWhile 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 repertoire with his good friend Ian McKellen.From our partners