Sir Patrick Stewart, the incomparable actor who died Wednesday at age 86 after a brief battle with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy Body dementia, had an Alpha Quadrant-sized task ahead of him back in 1987.
“Star Trek,” initially a canceled TV show that grew into a hugely popular and culturally influential franchise, had been synonymous with one man for more than 20 years: William Shatner.
By 1987, Shatner had boldly gone as Captain James T. Kirk across three television seasons and four major films. And now “Star Trek” was coming back to TV after a two-decade hiatus — without him.
The new man in the U.S.S. Enterprise’s captain’s chair was to be Patrick Stewart, a 46-year-old classical actor from Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. Most contented as Shylock or Titus Andronicus, he had appeared on a few UK TV shows in the 1970s and ’80s, like “I, Claudius” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” But Stewart had done nothing on the scale of the daunting mission he was about to embark on. Many people thought the series would flop. And next to nobody in America knew who he was.
What was clear is he certainly wasn’t James T. Kirk. Unlike Shatner’s thick blond hair, Stewart was fully bald. Shatner played a rule-breaking lover and a fighter, Stewart was an erudite Brit who exuded raw authority and spoke with a sonorous baritone. How could this possibly work?
When “Star Trek: The Next Generation” premiered on Sept. 28, 1987, audiences finally got to hear Stewart as their new captain, Jean-Luc Picard, speak that famous phrase: “Space, the final frontier.”
He was perfect — dashing, funny, powerful and paternal in ways both warm and scary. As far as I’m concerned, Stewart is simply the best to ever do it.
Yet his almost-40-year association with “Star Trek” was not writ in the stars. He worked hard to get there. Stewart endured a difficult upbringing in a house with no hot water or indoor toilet. Born in 1940 in Yorkshire, England, to a very poor family with an abusive father, young Stewart used books, movies and eventually theater as an escape.
A life-changing moment came when he was 12 years old and a teacher he adored had the class read aloud “The Merchant of Venice.”
“I barely understood a word, but I loved the feel of the words and sounds in my mouth,” the actor told The Guardian.
He’d go on to speak them all his life, and his classical training and rich life experience are what made him the superb actor he was. Stewart studied at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1957 and joined the RSC in 1966. He was there at the same time as fellow future luminaries Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Judi Dench and his lifelong friend, and the Magneto to his Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen.
And, after being cast in “The Next Generation” in 1987, Stewart moved to LA assuming he’d soon be back onstage in London with them.
“I found myself in Hollywood shooting a syndicated science fiction series, which I was assured would fail,” Stewart said.
But not only did the show Klingon — it was a big hit. “TNG” lived long and prospered. It was the top-rated syndicated show on TV, and in 1994 its series finale was watched by 30 million people. It spawned four movies throughout the 1990s and aughts.
“Star Trek: The Next Generation” remains the greatest “Trek” series of all time, in large part because of Stewart and how the show played to his extraordinary abilities as an actor.
In one of its finest episodes, “The Best of Both Worlds,” for example, the terrifying hive-mind villains the Borg are introduced and Picard is captured and assimilated. “I am Locutus of Borg,” he chillingly says with a face drained of blood and covered in freaky wires. Later in the excellent 1996 movie “Star Trek: First Contact,” Picard is still dealing with the psychological scars of that ordeal and the result was incredibly moving. Human drama was a place where no “Trek” had gone before — until Stewart.
The actor’s other huge contribution to the world of science-fiction was as Professor Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” films beginning in 2000. Twenty-six years later, he is still so associated with his “X-Men” performance in the minds of fans that his final big-screen part will be Xavier in “Avengers: Doomsday” this Christmas.
Like “Star Trek,” that was a chancy move at the time, too. Comic books on the big screen mostly meant “Batman.” Tobey Maguire’s “Spider-Man” was still two years away, and had you floated the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a bartender, he’d cut you off.
But, reuniting with McKellen, Stewart brought gravitas and real dramatic chops to the role. “X2” is still one of the better comic-book flicks in existence. The actor never turned his nose up at any material, and lent the same skill and commitment to Professor X and Picard as he did to Macbeth and King John.
In a roundabout way, Shakespeare also helped Stewart find the love of his life.
Stewart had married twice, sharing a son and daughter with his first wife, Sheila Falconer. But while Stewart was performing “Macbeth” in 2008 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, he met singer Sunny Ozell, who was a waitress at a nearby restaurant. He bought a home in Park Slope in 2012, and the pair wed in 2013. They remained married until he died.
One of Stewart’s last screen roles was donning his old captain’s uniform on “Star Trek: Picard.” In its wonderful final season in 2023, his “Next Generation” crew reunited. At the end, they’re all gathered at the bar, and in a full-circle moment, Picard recites Brutus’ “There is a tide in the affairs of men” speech from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”
Jonathan Frakes’ Captain Riker raises a glass and says, “We’re grateful to have ridden the tide with you.”
And so are we.
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