British actor Patrick Stewart, best known as Professor Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” films and Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” has died at the age of 86, according to South Korean reports citing international outlets.
News1 reported on October 30 that Stewart’s spokesperson announced on October 28, local time, that the actor had died in Los Angeles after battling Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia. The report, citing AP and other foreign media, said the fact that Stewart had been living with the two conditions only became public after his death.
No cause beyond the illnesses named in the announcement was given in the report, and no further family statement was included in the material available at the time of writing.
Hugh Jackman, Stewart’s longtime “X-Men” co-star, paid tribute on social media after the news broke. “Today we have lost one of the great actors of the stage and screen,” Jackman wrote, according to News1. “To me, he was an incomparably precious friend and a wonderful person. I learned so much from him.”
The tribute underlined a screen partnership that ran for more than two decades, with Jackman playing Wolverine opposite Stewart’s Professor X across the “X-Men” franchise.
Stewart was born in July 1940 in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, England. He began his career in theatre with a Shakespeare company before moving into television supporting roles in the 1980s, a stage-first path that shaped the formal, measured delivery that later defined his most famous characters.
His breakthrough to a mass audience came in 1987, when he took the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The series made Picard one of science fiction’s most recognisable captains, and Stewart remained tied to the franchise for decades.
From 2000, he brought the same authority to a second franchise, playing Professor X in the “X-Men” films. For audiences in South Korea and around the world, the role became his defining big-screen image: the calm, powerful mentor at the centre of the mutant saga.
News1 noted that Stewart’s final film is the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday,” due for release in December, in which he again appears as Professor X. The film will now stand as his last screen appearance, with further tributes from co-stars and studios expected to follow.
