Sir Patrick Stewart: 1940-2026

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Patrick Stewart has died at the age of 86, leaving an incredible body of work behind him. A few words on a passing legend. Even appreciating he was 86 years old, and even appreciating his life was clearly full, this still stings. As you more than likely know by now, the news broke that Sir ... Sir Patrick Stewart: 1940-2026

Patrick Stewart has died at the age of 86, leaving an incredible body of work behind him. A few words on a passing legend.

Even appreciating he was 86 years old, and even appreciating his life was clearly full, this still stings. As you more than likely know by now, the news broke that Sir Patrick Stewart had died last night.

In the statement post on his Instagram page, it was announce that he died on Wednesday “following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.”

The statement paid tribute to his incredible journey, “a son of Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, he travelled from the Royal Shakespeare Company to an equally acclaimed career spanning six decades on Broadway, the silver screen and television.”

That alone is quite something. The fact that he turned his talents not just to his work, but also to using his unbeatable voice to help those with less power and profile than him, is the measure of the man.

A six-decade career across stage and screen is what he leaves us with, and for us film nerds, straight away there’s a mighty boxset of Star Trek and X-Men movies to devout. There are lots of under the radar treasures too worth seeking out.

My colleague Ryan would never forgive me for not namechecking his appearance in Tobe Hooper’s genre delight Lifeforce from 1985, for instance. I keenly remember Stewart’s work in Richard Donner’s offbeat blockbuster Conspiracy Theory back in 1997 meanwhile, and his key role in 1995’s Jeffrey, a terrific indie feature that might just have needed the weight of his name to help get made. The same could potentially be said for Jeremy Saulnier’s terrific, shocking thriller Green Room, dating back to 2015.

Throughout his movie career, there was no snobbery, and a delightful grasp of genre. And even when the movies weren’t good? I still remember the delight he displayed on the press tour for, er, the ‘not very good’ The Emoji Movie, gleeful that he was voicing ‘poop’.

I think his work though in a film such as Logan is testament to what happens when an actor treats genre material seriously, and that remains one of his best movies to my eyes. But there are so, so many to choose from.

Rest in peace, Sir Patrick. Our thoughts are very much with his friends and family at this difficult time.