Sir Patrick Stewart, the actor who gave Star Trek its second great captain, Marvel its Professor X and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion its dying emperor, has died at 86. His family announced his death in a statement on Thursday: he died on October 28 at his home in Los Angeles, “in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.”
Watch the short YouTube“He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter, and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all,” the statement reads. He is survived by his wife, Sunny Ozell, and his two children.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard for 178 episodes, four films and three more seasons
Stewart was 47 and a Royal Shakespeare Company veteran when Star Trek: The Next Generation cast him as Jean-Luc Picard in 1987, a choice that drew doubt at the time because he was bald, British and nothing like William Shatner. He played the captain of the Enterprise-D for seven seasons and 178 episodes, then in four films from Generations in 1994 to Nemesis in 2002, and returned for three seasons of Star Trek: Picard from 2020 to 2023. The family’s statement borrows the memoir line he chose for the character: “Like me, Jean-Luc has lived an unusual life that has taken him far beyond the bounds of normal human experience. But he is also someone who has remained true to his earthbound roots, for they are what gave him his identity. In the end, he feels the call of home, as do I.”
Professor Charles Xavier across 17 years of X-Men films
His other defining screen role began in 2000 with X-Men, where he played Professor Charles Xavier opposite Ian McKellen’s Magneto, a pairing that became one of the closest friendships in either man’s life. He returned as Xavier in X2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past, and gave the role its ending in Logan in 2017, playing a frail, failing Xavier in a performance many critics called the best of the series. He came back once more for a cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022.
From Mirfield to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a knighthood in 2010
Stewart was born in Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1940 and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, where he spent the better part of two decades before television found him. The stage never left him. He played Macbeth in the West End and on Broadway, toured a one-man A Christmas Carol in which he voiced every character, and shared the stage with McKellen in Waiting for Godot and No Man’s Land. He was knighted in 2010, served as Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, and his family’s statement notes his work for human rights, domestic violence survivors, refugees, veterans’ mental health and animal welfare, “particularly his cherished foster pitties.” He was also, the statement adds, a lifelong Huddersfield Town supporter. Audiences of a different kind knew him as Avery Bullock in American Dad and as the narrator of the Ted films.
Emperor Uriel Septim VII: the Oblivion role that won him a Video Game Award
For a generation of PC and Xbox 360 players, Stewart’s voice is the first thing they heard in Cyrodiil. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006, he played Emperor Uriel Septim VII, who meets the player in a prison cell, recognises them from his dreams, and leads them through the sewers before his assassination sets the whole game in motion. It is a few minutes of screen time that players quote nearly two decades later. “Men are but flesh and blood,” the emperor tells you. “They know their doom, but not the hour.” The role won Stewart the 2006 Spike Video Game Award for best performance by a human male.
When Bethesda and Virtuos released The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered in April 2025, they recorded new dialogue for the game’s races but left the emperor alone. Stewart’s 2006 recording plays unchanged in the remaster’s opening, which means his performance reached millions of new players in the final year of his life.
Picard in three Star Trek games, Zobek in Castlevania, and a king in Lands of Lore
Oblivion was not his first game. Stewart’s earliest credit is Westwood’s Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos in 1993, where he played King Richard of Gladstone. He voiced Picard in Star Trek: Armada in 2000, Star Trek: Bridge Commander in 2002 and Star Trek: Legacy in 2006, and Professor Xavier in X-Men: Next Dimension in 2002. In 2010 he took on Zobek, the manipulative Lord of the Dead in Konami’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and returned for Lords of Shadow 2 in 2014, where the character’s long game finally plays out. Later credits include the narrator roles in Felix the Reaper and Shadow Point in 2019.
Players marked his death the way they mark everything, by quoting him. On r/gaming the tribute thread led with the emperor’s lines and the captain’s, and one reply summed up the overlap: “How did I forget that was him. I even played that game a few days ago.”
Rest in Peace to Sir Patrick Stewart — voice of Emperor Uriel in TES: Oblivion
byu/ChiefLeef22 ingaming
In lieu of flowers, the family has asked for donations to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s caregiver resources.
