Acclaimed classically trained actor, hailed as 'one of the greats,' by his co-stars, died after suffering from previously undisclosed Alzheimer's disease and Lewy Body Dementia
Patrick Stewart è morto a 86 anni nella sua casa di Los Angeles, circondato dalla moglie Sunny Ozell, dai familiari e dagli amici. L’attore britannico, protagonista di Star Trek e della saga degli X-Men, aveva affrontato negli ultimi anni l’Alzheimer. La famiglia ha annunciato la morte il 29 ottobre.
Patrick Stewart: da Shakespeare al capitano Picard
Patrick Stewart era nato il 13 luglio 1940 a Mirfield, nello Yorkshire. Prima della fama televisiva aveva costruito una lunga carriera nel teatro britannico. Dopo la formazione alla Bristol Old Vic Theatre School entrò nella Royal Shakespeare Company, dove rimase per circa 14 anni interpretando numerosi personaggi del repertorio classico.
La svolta internazionale arrivò nel 1987, quando ottenne il ruolo del capitano Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Interpretò Picard per 178 episodi fino al 1994 e tornò successivamente nel personaggio nei film Star Trek: Generations, Primo contatto, L’insurrezione e La nemesi. Decenni più tardi tornò ancora una volta nell’universo di Star Trek con la serie Star Trek: Picard.
Patrick Stewart e il professor Xavier negli X-Men
Per un’altra generazione Stewart è soprattutto Charles Xavier, il Professor X. Il debutto avvenne con X-Men nel 2000. Tornò nel ruolo in X-Men 2, X-Men: Conflitto finale, X-Men – Giorni di un futuro passato e Logan, oltre ad altre apparizioni legate all’universo Marvel.
Il rapporto sullo schermo con Ian McKellen, interprete di Magneto e suo grande amico anche nella vita, diventò uno degli elementi più riconoscibili della saga. Stewart riprese ancora una versione di Xavier in Doctor Strange nel Multiverso della Follia.
Patrick Stewart: da Dune a Robin Hood
La carriera cinematografica era però molto più ampia. Nel 1981 partecipò a Excalibur di John Boorman. Nel Dune di David Lynch del 1984 interpretò Gurney Halleck. Nel 1993 apparve invece nella commedia Robin Hood – Un uomo in calzamaglia di Mel Brooks, interpretando Re Riccardo.
La sua attività teatrale non si interruppe con la fama hollywoodiana. Nel West End e a Broadway fu protagonista, insieme a Ian McKellen, anche di Aspettando Godot di Samuel Beckett.
McKellen and Stewart led the original 'X-Men' franchise for 20th Century Fox, portraying Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr and Professor Charles Xavier, respectively.
Sir Pat Stew's collaborator on his 2023 memoir, 'Making It So,' retraces the late actor's unlikely second act, plucked from the Shakespearean stage and placed at the helm 'USS Enterprise' — and a nonpareil Hollywood career.
Stewart died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles at 86 following “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia,” longtime spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak announced.
Silver screen legend Patrick Stewart, who gained fans the world over for generations starring in iconic rolls from "Star Trek's" Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier in the "X-Men" franchise, has died. He was 86.
The actor originated the role of Prof. Charles Xavier for 20th Century Fox in 2000, and will reprise the role in Marvel's upcoming 'Avengers: Doomsday.'
The companies say the tie-up would combine DoorDash's global reach and expertise in logistics with Instacart's purpose-built technology and long relationships with grocers.
Led by the Shakespearean veteran in his role as Jean-Luc Picard, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” gracefully went where the franchise had never gone before.
Patrick Stewart, el capitán Jean-Luc Picard de la saga Star Trek y el profesor Charles Xavier en la saga de Marvel X-Men, falleció el miércoles 28 de octubre en Los Ángeles (California), aunque su familia lo ha comunicado un día después. Tenía 86 años.
Patrick Stewart, the acclaimed British stage and screen actor renowned for both Shakespeare and sci-fi, has died. He was 86.
The Star Trek: the Next Generation and X-Men star died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia”, said Kelly Bush Novak, his longtime spokesperson, to the Hollywood Reporter.
Patrick Stewart at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards in 2021.
Rich Fury/Getty Images
Actor Patrick Stewart has died at 86.
His rep announced he died after "a brief and poignant journey" with Alzheimer's and Lewy Body Dementia.
Stewart was known for his stage work and roles in "Star Trek" and "X-Men."
Legendary actor Patrick Stewart, known for his roles in the "Star Trek" franchise and "X-Men" films, has died at age 86.
A post on his official Instagram page announced Steward died at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday, "in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia."
"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 post continued. "We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace."
In lieu of flowers, the family requested that memorial contributions be made to Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Fund and Alzheimer's Foundation of America Caregiver Resources.
Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
CBS via Getty Images
Born on July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, Stewart became interested in acting at age 12, when an English teacher introduced him to William Shakespeare's writing.
Although Stewart initially dropped out of school at age 15 to work as a journalist, he quickly abandoned that pursuit and began performing in theater productions. He graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1959.
At 26, Stewart joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he spent much of the 1960s establishing himself as a celebrated stage actor. He made his Broadway debut in 1971 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and would go on to perform in over a dozen stage adaptations of classics like "The Tempest" and "A Christmas Carol."
"I knew from before drama school that Shakespeare was my great love," Stewart told Playbill in 2010.
Alongside his stage work, the actor also launched his TV career in the '60s — but his big Hollywood break came two decades later, when he landed the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the series "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
The sci-fi show lasted for seven seasons between 1987 and 1994. Stewart also reprised his role for an episode of the show "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" as well as several more movies, including "Star Trek Generations" (1994), "Star Trek: First Contact" (1996), "Star Trek: Insurrection" (1998), and "Star Trek: Nemesis" (2002). He also did voice work for "Star Trek" video games.
Stewart would go on to star in another popular franchise, Sony's "X-Men," making his debut as Professor Charles Xavier, a telepathic mutant and founder of the X-Men, in the 2000 movie "X-Men."
Stewart as Charles Xavier in "X-Men."
Twentieth Century Fox
Ian McKellen, who was also a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the '60s and '70s, starred opposite Stewart in the original "X-Men" series as the powerful mutant Magneto.
Despite playing onscreen rivals, the two actors became close friends in real life, with McKellen officiating Stewart's 2013 wedding to singer Sunny Ozell in Reno, Nevada.
"We became good friends as a result of shooting multimillion-dollar adventure movies," Stewart later told NPR of McKellen.
Stewart's most recent roles included voice work for the animated series "American Dad!" and the 2026 movie "The Sheep Detectives." He reprised his role as Jean-Luc Picard from 2020 to 2023 in the series "Star Trek: Picard," and returned as Charles Xavier in 2017's "Logan," 2022's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," and the forthcoming Marvel film "Avengers: Doomsday," out this December. The blockbuster will mark his final onscreen appearance.
Despite starring in multimillion-dollar movie franchises, Stewart returned to the stage throughout his career. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of Macbeth in the 2008 Broadway revival and starred opposite McKellen in two-play repertory productions of "Waiting for Godot" and "No Man's Land" in 2013 and 2014.
"I have often heard actors say, 'I can't afford to go back to the theater,'" Stewart told NPR. "I look at a lot of the work that I do in film and television — which I love — but, at the same time, it underwrites and supports the other work that I want to do."
Stewart did not see his onscreen work and his stage work as at odds; on the contrary, he described his two most recognizable roles, Picard and Xavier, as "entirely complementary" to his theater career.
"The techniques are different, and the rhythm and pattern of the work are different, but the approach to how I act doesn't change — the fundamental thing is to pursue the truth," he told Playbill.
Stewart is survived by Ozell and his two children, Daniel Stewart and Sophia Stewart, from his first marriage to Sheila Falconer.
For more than 300 years, since Peter I's 1708 script reform, Ukrainian lettering has been shaped by imperial Russian norms. Zakon, presented on 29 October 2026, aims to break that pattern and decolonize the letters of Ukraine's state acts and awards.
The national font for official state communication draws on the work of Ukrainian artists, including Heorhii Narbut, who designed a 1918 banknote for the Ukrainian People's Republic, the short-lived independent state that fell to the Bolsheviks. It is meant to replace Izhitsa, Petersburg, and other Russian-origin fonts still often used on honor certificates, letters of thanks, diplomas, battle flags, and signs, adding a visual touch to the country's push to boost its national culture amid the fifth year of Russia's full-blown invasion.
Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk presented Zakon on 29 October, nine months after parliament adopted a resolution that called for a national font and said Russian-origin fonts had no place in official acts or on state awards. The Ministry of Culture developed it with money from the job site Work.ua and its co-owner Artur Mikhno, and the font is still in beta testing, the ministry says.
“The letters in which the word ‘Ukraine’ is written are also part of our state identity,” Stefanchuk wrote. “Decolonization should also concern how Ukraine presents itself.”
"Ukraine" written in Zakon font. Screenshot from mincult.gov.ua
“The creation of a national typeface is an important step toward ensuring that state institutions represent Ukraine through our artistic tradition and contemporary Ukrainian design. [...] We want Ukrainian design to shape the image of our country, and for our cultural heritage to become a source of new solutions,” said Tetiana Berezhna, Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Minister of Culture.
Three typefaces, one of them free for anyone
Zakon comes in three versions. Zakon Text is designed for everyday official paperwork and is free for anyone to use; it's available for download here. Zakon Decor, for ceremonial inscriptions, and Zakon Letterpress, for printing the originals of legal acts, have closed licenses.
Zakon Text has four styles: regular, italic, bold, and bold italic. The ministry asks users to test it and send feedback before a wider rollout, which Stefanchuk said will be gradual.
The designers are Oleksii Chekal, Hennadii Zarechniuk, Dmytro Rastvortsev, and Andrii Shevchenko, with Taras Ishchyk leading the project.
Example of an Antiqua font
The ministry calls Zakon a “classic Ukrainian antiqua.” Antiqua, or roman, is the family of upright serif letters that grew out of a script Renaissance Italian humanists modeled on Carolingian handwriting, which they took for ancient Roman.
The name set it apart from blackletter, the Gothic script, and its forms became the basis of the roman typefaces Nicolas Jenson and Aldus Manutius cut in 15th-century Venice.
Built on the lettering of six Ukrainian artists
Zakon brings Ukrainian letter forms back to Cyrillic. The Ministry of Culture says that its developers “generalized most of the characteristic features” of six Ukrainian graphic artists’ lettering.
Heorhii Narbut (1886–1920) is credited with 13 of the 24 banknotes issued in 1917–1920, the first Ukrainian postage stamps, and an illustrated Ukrainian alphabet he never finished. His letters drew on Cossack baroque motifs and floral ornament.
Design of the 100 hryvnia note of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Typography, illustration, ornamentation. Heorhii Narbut, 1918.
Vasyl Krychevskyi (1873–1952) drew the trident that became the coat of arms of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1918, along with its seals and banknotes.
Vasyl Krychevskyi. Coat of Arms of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Poster, 1918.
Robert Lisovskyi (1893–1982), a follower of Narbut, made prints, book covers, and emblems, and later led the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain.
Cover of the magazine *For the Unity of the Nation*. Lettering and coat of arms by Robert Lisovskyi, 1955.
Vasyl Khomenko (1912–1984) created New Ukrainian, a typeface he worked on from 1963 to 1970. Zakon co-designer Zarechniuk is one of the authors of Homenko, a typeface based on his work.
Homenko Font Family developed by Zarechniuk
Yakiv Hnizdovskyi (1915–1985) emigrated to the United States in 1949, later settling in New York, and made close to 250 woodcuts, along with book covers and bookplates.
Book cover. Calligraphy, ornamentation. Yakiv Hnizdovskyi, 1949, Regensburg.
Vasyl Chebanyk (1933–2025) began studying the Ukrainian alphabet in 1971 and in 2001 launched the Rutenia project to restore older Ukrainian forms in a modern shape. Rutenia later grew to more than 60 fonts and won him the Shevchenko National Prize. One of them is on the cover of the ceremonial copy of Ukraine’s Constitution.
The Rutenia decorative typeface designed by Vasyl Chebanyk. Illustrative image
How Ukraine's state started dropping Russian fonts
Russia's full-scale invasion turned fonts into a state matter. On 29 September 2022, days after Russia's sham "referendums" in four occupied Ukrainian oblasts, Anna Yakupova, CEO of ParaType, the Russian studio whose Cyrillic versions of Petersburg and other fonts Ukraine's state institutions still use, congratulated colleagues in a chat that "our country got bigger," prompting a campaign to shun the fonts.
In August 2023, MPs from three factions registered bill 9606 to ban the Russian font Izhitsa from Verkhovna Rada documents and move parliament's honor certificates to Volja, a Ukrainian font made in 2022 by Marchela Mozhyna from the lettering of artist Nil Khasevych. A month later, the culture ministry announced plans for a bank of Ukrainian fonts to replace Russian ones.
In July 2026, the fight reached Ukraine's money. The National Bank of Ukraine said it would redraw the lettering on its new 2,000-hryvnia note featuring poet Vasyl Stus, after type designer Bohdan Hdal said the denomination lettering resembled an unofficial Cyrillic adaptation of Bickham Script made by a Russian designer. “No Russian shadows on a banknote with a poet whom Russia killed,” NBU Governor Andrii Pyshnyi said.
The "Two thousand hryvnias" inscription on Ukraine's new banknote will be redrawn after critics said it resembled a Russian designer's unofficial adaptation of a font
Some readers balk at the Z
Not everyone liked the name. Among the top comments under Stefanchuk’s post, readers objected that the Latin spelling starts with Z, the letter Russia painted on its vehicles for the full-scale invasion. Others welcomed the font itself.
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