Patrick Stewart dies at 86 in Los Angeles, Ian McKellen pays tribute

Death and reaction

Patrick Stewart died on Wednesday, 28 October 2026, at his home in Los Angeles, aged 86, according to reports from several Greek outlets. Some articles give the date as 29 October, so the exact timing is not settled across sources. Multiple outlets said he had been living with Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, and that the illness did not stop him working on stage and screen.

Ian McKellen, his longtime friend and co-star, was among the first to publicly say goodbye. In a long Instagram post, McKellen wrote that Stewart was shaped by growing up in Yorkshire, the county he loved until the end.

“Above all, Patrick was defined by the fact that he was born and raised in Yorkshire, the proud county of northern England that he loved until the end.”

Career and friendship

McKellen said the two first met about half a century ago in the Royal Shakespeare Company, though they were never in the same productions. He recalled meeting Stewart on a London street a few years later, when Stewart told him about an offer to play a lead role in Star Trek. McKellen said he had asked whether Stewart really wanted to risk years in Hollywood away from the British theatre.

Stewart took the risk, and McKellen credited that choice with bringing him to a wide audience. Outlets listed his work in X-Men, Shakespeare productions in Stratford, the West End and on Broadway, and plays by Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. McKellen said America became Stewart's second home, where he met his wife, Sunny.

“We lost one of the best on the stage and on the screen.”

Star Trek and X-Men roles

Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which aired seven seasons from 1987 to 1994 and earned 18 Emmy awards and a Peabody award, according to one outlet. He appeared in four Star Trek films between 1994 and 2002 and returned to the role in Star Trek: Picard, which ran for three seasons after 2020. In X-Men he played Professor Charles Xavier, a role he was due to reprise in Avengers: Doomsday.

In a July interview with TV Insider, Stewart said he could not imagine retiring and would always be an actor. Reports said his final performance in Avengers: Doomsday has not yet been shown publicly, and the film is expected in about a month and a half.

Early life

Stewart was born on 13 July 1940 in Mirfield, near Dewsbury in West Yorkshire. His mother, Gladys, worked in a textile mill, and his father, Alfred, a former sergeant in the British Army, was described as a violent man who drank heavily. One outlet reported that Stewart grew up with domestic violence in the home, an experience that shaped his later advocacy against it. He left school at 15 and later began work as a journalist and editor before turning to acting.