Patrick Stewart portrayed Soviet leaders and spies before becoming a Hollywood superstar
British screen legend Patrick Stewart, who portrayed Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and a powerful KGB chief before finding global fame as Captain Picard in Star Trek and Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men, has died aged 86.
Stewart passed away at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday after battling Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, his representatives confirmed on Thursday. His family said he spent his final days surrounded by loved ones following “a brief and poignant journey” with the illnesses.
Born in Yorkshire in 1940, Stewart built his reputation on the British stage, spending decades performing Shakespeare and joining the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s.
Long before commanding the USS Enterprise, Stewart had already brought some of the most prominent figures in Russian and Soviet history and literature to the screen. In the 1974 BBC historical drama Fall of Eagles, he portrayed Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in a series chronicling the collapse of Europe’s great empires, including Russia’s Romanov dynasty.
Five years later, Stewart took on one of his most intriguing Cold War roles. He played Karla, the formidable Soviet intelligence chief and principal rival of British spy George Smiley, portrayed by Alec Guinness, in the BBC adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979).
Stewart returned as Karla in Smiley’s People (1982), another adaptation of le Carré’s espionage novels. Despite his character’s central role in the intelligence struggle between Moscow and London, Stewart delivered the entire performance without uttering a single word.
His ties to Russian literature went beyond Cold War espionage. In 1973, Stewart appeared as Gurvich in the BBC adaptation of The Love-Girl and the Innocent, a play by Alexander Solzhenitsyn set in a Soviet labor camp. The production aired months before the Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer was expelled from the USSR in 1974.
The actor’s career took a dramatic turn in 1987 when he landed the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The series propelled Stewart to international stardom, spawning several films and a later spin-off centered on his character.
He went on to portray the wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier in the blockbuster X-Men franchise, sharing the screen with longtime friend Ian McKellen.
Stewart was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010 for his services to drama.
His death prompted tributes from across the entertainment industry, with fellow Star Trek actor William Shatner remembering him as “a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor.”
