Some captains are remembered for the risks they took. Others are remembered for the way they made a bridge feel like a place of reason even when the stars were coming apart. Patrick Stewart, who died Oct. 28 at the age of 86, belonged to the second group. Long before he sat in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise, he had spent decades on British stages learning how to hold an audience with stillness and precision rather than hollering and harrumphing. That training, honed at the Royal Shakespeare Company, turned out to be exactly what a 24th-century starship needed.
He was born on July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, in a house without indoor plumbing. An English teacher spotted the boy’s talent and put Shakespeare in his hands. Stewart left school at 15 and won a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. By 1966 he had joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he remained a central figure for years. He played Snout in Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra (for which he won an Olivier Award), and a long list of others. The work established him as one of the most versatile classical actors of his generation. On television he appeared in I, Claudius and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; on film he took smaller roles in Excalibur and Dune. None of it prepared him, or the audience, for what came next.
In 1987, at an age when many stage actors of his generation were settling into supporting parts, Stewart was cast as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gene Roddenberry initially resisted the choice; some of Stewart’s colleagues advised him to stay with the theater. He accepted anyway and answered the skepticism with a performance of measured authority and intellectual curiosity. Picard became the ethical center of a franchise previously defined by action.
The series ran for seven seasons and spawned four feature films. Stewart later returned to the character in the series Star Trek: Picard. At the same time he played Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, bringing the same combination of eloquence and humanity to the telepathic mentor of Cyclops and Wolverine. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2001 and knighted in 2010. Between the science-fiction work, he continued to return to the stage, including a widely praised one-man A Christmas Carol and productions of Macbeth and Waiting for Godot with his good friend Ian McKellen. His voice, already famous from the stage and the bridge, also turned up in video games, advertisements, and animated TV shows, such as my personal favorite Patrick Stewart performance — his recurring appearances in Family Guy. (That’s right — Sir Patrick had serious Shakespearean gravitas and a terrific sense of humor.)
Stewart’s reach extended past entertainment. Astronomers at NASA have described Picard as a formative influence — a leader who consulted his crew regardless of rank, insisted on evidence, and treated exploration as both a scientific and a moral undertaking. After his death, NASA shared images of colliding galaxies that resemble the silhouette of the Enterprise and wrote that history would never forget the name Captain Picard. (Neither would one of my best friends, who named his dog after him.) Few actors have so directly shaped the ambitions of people who study the stars.
What set Stewart apart was the ease with which he moved between the classical stage and the most popular of popular culture without diminishing either. He could deliver a Shakespearean soliloquy one season and, the next, sit in a Starfleet uniform or a wheelchair as Professor X and make both feel equally authentic. In later years he spoke openly about the value of that dual career, noting that the discipline of the Royal Shakespeare Company had prepared him for the long hours of television while the unexpected fame of Star Trek had given him the freedom to choose stage work on his own terms. That combination produced a public figure who remained recognizably himself whether he was addressing a sold-out theater or a science-fiction convention.
Although he played some of the most celebrated characters known to man — Macbeth, Lear, Shylock, and Prospero — Stewart once observed that if he were remembered solely as Captain Picard, he would be “absolutely fine with that.”
There is indeed nothing wrong with Star Trek being the first thing that comes up if you’re an actor and someone does an IMDB search on you. Though, I have to admit, it does make me worry just a tad. The Talmud states that when one member of a group dies, the entire group should be concerned. Last week we devoted this space to the recently departed Chekov (Walter Koenig). This week, unfortunately, it’s Picard. Sulu and Captain Kirk, wherever you are — please stay safe. And to everyone else out there — may you all live long and prosper.
Daniel Ross Goodman (@DanRossGoodman) is a Washington Examiner contributing writer and teaches theology and religious studies at St. John’s University. His next book, Dante’s Guide to Life: How The Divine Comedy Can Change Our Fortunes, Our World, and Ourselves, will be published this fall by Angelico Press.