I learned Patrick Stewart had died when Sandra came downstairs to my office wearing her Star Fleet insignia pin with a small purple aster respectfully tucked under it. Like all born in that Boomer-Gen-X border she was mouning her Captain, Jean-Luc Picard, hero for seven seasons and four feature films of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2010, dimmed recently by Alzeimer’s and Lewy Body Dementia, the stage, screen and television star passed away Oct. 28 in Los Angeles. He was 86.
I was finishing up a remembrance of Star Trek original cast member Walter Koenig (Chekov) when Sandra broke the news. Earlier in the week, I was typing goodbye notes here to Bugs and Daffy voice artist Eric Bauza, Tom Skerritt, Susan Saint James, and NHL star Ron Duguay. A few others I never got to, including Barbara Barrie (“Breaking Away,” the first season of Barney Miller), 95; and Lola Heatherton inspiration Elke Sommer, 85. It has been a tough week.
A native of Yorkshire, England, Stewart was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company headlining productions of everything from Anthony and Cleopatra to MacBeth. He knew nothing of American sci-fi TV when he was offered the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: the Next Generation in 1987. Friends said don’t do it, it will derail your West End/Broadway career. Seven seasons and four spin-off Star Trek feature films later he was rich and famous and, sure typcast.
He continued to work both sides of the beat, co-starring with lifelong pal Ian McKellen in “Waiting for Godot” and banking big time with roles as a Marvel superhero professor Charlies Xavier in the X-Men film series. On Instagram this week, McKellen saluted his friend and colleague, calling him “the most respected and beloved actor of his generation.”
In 2011 Stewart teamed with original Star Trek skipper William Shatner in the feature-length documentary “The Captains.” Shatner one of the first to pay respects on-line with news of the passing, praised Stewart as a friend, colleague, and magnificent actor who brought intelligence and grace from the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise.”Captain Picard stood for the best of us, and so did the man who played him.”
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Stewart began to venture into more comedic roles, including a memorable episode in the final season of Frasier and a guest starring part of The Simpsons. His deep, Shakespeare-trained baritone was used to great effect in animated films such as “Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.”
Executive producer Seth MacFarlane began a long association with Stewart on several projects, most notably casting him as CIA Director Avery Bullock on American Dad. MacFarlane pitched the role as that of a CIA director who is obviously English — except to the group of American agents who surround him. “They’re not the sharpest knives in the drawer,” said Stewart.
It was at this later stage of Stewart’s career where I caught up with him as a TV columnist. I enjoyed a memorable phoner with the actor as he was about to shoot the second season of what he and I both thought was a hilarous, if raunchy, live-action comedy called Blunt Talk. Stewart played Walter Blunt, a former Royal Marines major turned cable news journalist. His plan was to conquer American cable news just like he captured the enemy in the Falklands. Blunt, however, was a raging narcissist, lurching from one self-inflicted scandal to another and relentlessly abusing his alcoholic manservant (Adrian Scarborough).
The role, written by Jonathan Ames (HBO’s Bored to Death), earned Stewart a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a TV musical or comedy series. Ames and Stewart had several breakfast meetings while both lived in Brooklyn and together they hammered out the Blunt bible.
Conventional wisdom at the time had Blunt based on British broadcast journalist Piers Morgan. Stewart even had to convince Morgan that wasn’t really the case. Stewart was in a Beverly Hills restaurant when Morgan leaned over from the next booth and said, “You’re playing me? What’s going on?”
Stewart explained the character had nothing to do with the former CNN host, who then went on to give the actor all kinds of insight into what it was like being a Brit in the American cable news spotlight.
Recurring on the series was Richard Lewis (as Blunt’s network-imposed shrink), Ed Begley, Jr., Elizabeth Shue, Jason Schwartzman and even Stewart’s old “ST:TNG” pal Brent Spiner as a pianist in Walter’s favourite bar.
“It was endless days of fun,” says Stewart of the production. “The experience is much more like daily reunions with dear friends than shooting a series.”
Stewart, who may have just been pleased to be interviewed by somebody who knew nothing about Star Trek: The Next Generation, even urged my to fly down to LA and visit the set of the series.
“I have spent many, many happy months in Canada both doing theatre work as well as film. We shot all the “X-Men” and “Wolverine” films in Canada,” he says. “I really hope Canadians take a liking to Walter and his other dysfunctional teammates.”
Stewart took a bigger risk performing stand-up comedy in Montreal one year earlier at the Just for Laughs festival. CBC later aired his festival appearance as a special titled, “Sir Patrick Stewart: A Knight of Comedy.”
On that occasion, Stewart delivered his own eulogy.
“In the event,” the then 75-year-old actor began,”that this is it for me, I’d like to take a few moments to remember a great man whom I know had meant a lot to all of us here — me.
“Sir Patrick Stewart was more than just an actor,” he continued. “He was the greatest actor ever. He was also a husband and a father and a friend but most of all he was an objectophile who acheived sexual congress with literally thousands of inanimate objects.”
Sounds as if MacFarlane might have helped with that routine.
Stewart went on to headline the spin off series Star Trek Picard, a less-than-stellar, three season mission that boldly went nowhere. As Admiral Picard, he was retired on a vineyard, put out to pasture after being blamed for a mission gone wrong. Stewart just never seemed, if you’ll pardon the expression, engaged. Sure, there were Earl Grey tea shout out moments, easter eggs for the fans. There were the eventual reunions with many of his former ST:TNG castmates.
I prefer to think of him as the vulgar, narcissist Walter Blunt, a role Stewart clearly relished and chewed to bits. Sometimes there is nothing better than seeing a great dramatic actor do low comedy. Clearly Stewart wanted to experience all his craft had to offer. As he told me on that call, “so much of show business is a lottery. You should never give up hope at what could come along.”
Condolences to his family, friends and many fans.
