Patrick Stewart dies at 86: from the RSC to Star Trek and X-Men

Patrick Stewart, the British actor who moved from the Royal Shakespeare Company to worldwide fame as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek and Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men, has died aged 86, The Guardian reports. In a tribute published alongside its news coverage, the paper argues that no actor showed more clearly what British classical training could achieve in American film and television.

What happened

The Guardian has published a set of articles marking Stewart’s death, among them a news report, an obituary that refers to him as Sir Patrick Stewart, a gallery of his life in pictures and a collection of tributes headed “He stood for the best of us”, which includes words from William Shatner. The tribute examined here looks at how Stewart’s stage background shaped his screen career.

According to The Guardian, Stewart belonged to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s celebrated 1970s generation of stage actors. He also took notable television roles in Britain, including Sejanus in I, Claudius, where he played opposite Derek Jacobi. The paper describes his performance in that part as intimidating.

His move into popular culture came with Star Trek: The Next Generation. The series ran from 1987 to 1994 and gave rise to four feature films and, later, another series, Star Trek: Picard. The Guardian contrasts Stewart’s Picard with William Shatner’s Captain James Kirk. In the paper’s view, Kirk was a clean-cut action and romantic lead, while Picard was a more complex figure who brought “a whole new generation of Trekkers” a new leader to rally behind. The tribute also suggests that Alan Rickman’s character Alexander Dane, in the 1999 comedy Galaxy Quest, may have owed something to Stewart.

The Guardian then follows Stewart into the X-Men franchise in the early 2000s. There he played Professor Charles Xavier, the wheelchair-using mentor to the mutants, with fellow RSC actor Ian McKellen as Magneto. The paper argues that the role let Stewart draw even more on his Shakespearean background, because the franchise often presented Xavier as a wise, kingly figure and at times as something like an exiled monarch.

The tribute adds that Stewart had worked in fantasy and science fiction long before either franchise. He played King Leodegrance, Guenevere’s father, in John Boorman’s Excalibur in 1981, and Gurney Halleck, adviser to Paul Atreides, in David Lynch’s Dune in 1984. Outside the big franchises, the writer’s favourite Stewart performance is in Jeremy Saulnier’s horror-thriller Green Room, in which he plays a neo-Nazi leader whose followers attack a rock band trapped in the green room of a run-down bar. The Guardian says the role let him be “vehemently and compellingly bad” in a way Star Trek and Marvel never did.

Why it matters if you live in United Kingdom

Stewart’s story connects British theatre with global popular culture. Internationals who first knew him as Picard or Professor X may not realise how much of his craft came from the British stage, and from the Royal Shakespeare Company in particular. The Guardian’s coverage presents that training as the source of his screen presence, especially what it calls his “sonorous” and “mellifluous” voice and his skill at shifting between refinement and menace.

His work also includes British television that remains part of the country’s cultural memory. The Guardian points to I, Claudius, in which he appeared with Derek Jacobi, as one of the “classy small screen roles” he took before Hollywood. Newcomers trying to understand British drama could find that series, and the RSC tradition behind it, a useful starting point.

The Guardian’s wider coverage reaches beyond acting. One related article reports that domestic abuse charities have praised Stewart’s legacy, with a headline quoting the line “His honesty gave courage to survivors”. The paper has also published a separate piece on the legacy of domestic violence in his life. For readers in the UK, this part of his public life may matter as much as his film roles.

Readers who want to take part in the remembrance can do so through The Guardian, which has invited people to share their tributes and memories of Stewart.

What to watch next

The Guardian’s coverage suggests his stage career will be a large part of how he is remembered. A companion piece on his greatest stage roles, which the paper sums up as ranging “from clowns to kings to wounded lions”, looks at the theatre work that came before and alongside his screen fame. Anyone curious about why critics treat him as more than a science fiction star should read it.

More tributes are likely to come from colleagues and fans. The Guardian has already published reactions from William Shatner and others, and its reader tribute page is open. Further pieces in the same series include a reflection on how Stewart’s Star Trek work could “make anyone feel hopeful for humanity” and a lighter article on his status as an icon for bald men.

For anyone in the UK who wants to revisit his films and series, The Guardian’s tribute gives a clear viewing list: I, Claudius, Excalibur, Dune, Star Trek: The Next Generation and its films, Star Trek: Picard, the X-Men films and Green Room. Together they cover a career that the paper describes as making Stewart “a unique charismatic force on screen”.

Source: The Guardian