This is a tough one to take. Sir Patrick Stewart, Starship Captain and Headmaster and Founder of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, has died at the age of 86.
A statement from his representatives reads as follows:
“We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.
He has been 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.”
Patrick Stewart’s career spanned over 60 years across stage and screen. He won two Olivier awards, a Grammy award and was nominated for a Tony and three Golden Globes. He received a knighthood in 2010.
Popular Culture
Stewart achieved worldwide fame playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) and four Star Trek movies. He recently reprised the role for the streaming series Picard.
His other major contribution to popular culture was playing Professor X nine times in the X-Men movies and the MCU. Despite being killed off four times, he will reprise the role once more in Avengers: Doomsday, which releases in December.
It will serve as Stewarts’s swansong. We can only hope that Professor X’s fifth and final death in the Marvel Multiverse means something this time.
Patrick Stewart was a true class act.
I’ll leave the final word to Jean-Luc Picard himself, taken from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Inner Light (season 5, episode 25):
“Seize the time. Live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”
Make it so.
