Patrick Stewart, the actor best known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” died Wednesday at his Los Angeles home at age 86 following a brief battle with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.
A statement posted to social media said Stewart was in the “loving care” of his wife, Sunny Ozell, whom he married in 2013, at the time of his death.
“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 read. “We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.”
Three years before his death, Stewart had spoken candidly about what he called a “practically non-existent” relationship with his two children, son Daniel, 58, and daughter Sophie, 54, from his first marriage to Sheila Falconer.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not pained by the memory of my children, who they were and by a sense of responsibility that they became who they are in part because of me and my influence or lack of influence on them,” Stewart said during an October 2023 interview with the Irish Independent. “I always put my acting work first, before my family.”
Asked whether he had played Picard as the father he wished he’d had, Stewart said, “I think it might have been more the one I wished I was.” He acknowledged it had been difficult to be the kind of father he wanted to be.
“Given that I’m separated from my children now, we don’t have relationships, they have become very important. I never thought that this would happen, but both my children are in their 50s, they’re not children anymore, they’re adults. And my relationship with them is practically non-existent.”
Stewart had raised the same regret years earlier. In a 2009 interview with the Independent, he said he “could’ve done better as a parent, when [his] kids were little.”
“I was just obsessed with my work and everything else took second place,” he said at the time, adding that he was “trying to correct that now whenever possible with my grandchildren.” He said then that “my own children seem to have forgiven me.”
Reps for Sophie and Daniel were not immediately available for comment.
Stewart married Falconer in 1966; the couple divorced in 1990. He later married Wendy Neuss in 2000, and that marriage ended three years later. He married Ozell in 2013.
Just months before his death, Stewart spoke about his career, telling TV Insider in July that “there are fewer and fewer available roles as we get older,” but said he still enjoyed being “challenged by new work.”
“I can’t imagine ever officially ‘retiring,'” he told the outlet. “I’ll always and forever be an actor.”
