Two Tramps on 48th Street, Patrick Stewart Dies at 86

Patrick Stewart, the stage actor who became Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier, died on Wednesday, October 28, at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86, Playbill reports.

The house at 138 West 48th Street has a different name now. In the winter of 2013 it was still the Cort, and two old men were waiting there for someone who never came. Stewart was one of them. Ian McKellen was the other.

That is the Broadway picture to keep. The starship captain, bald and certain, standing on a bare stage with a friend, making Beckett funny.

How Did Patrick Stewart Die?

He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia, according to the family statement his spokesperson, Kelly Bush Novak, confirmed to NBC News. Lewy body dementia is a progressive brain disease that affects memory, movement and thinking.

"We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles," the statement begins, as quoted by NBC News. Today reports that the statement, posted to his Instagram on October 29, says he died "in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny."

In lieu of flowers, the family asked for donations to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Fund and to the Alzheimer's Foundation of America's caregiver resources, Playbill reports.

What Did He Do on Broadway?

A great deal, and over a long time. He made his Broadway debut in 1971 as Snout, one of the workmen, in Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream. By then he was a Royal Shakespeare Company regular. He was a member from 1966 to 1982 and appeared in more than 60 of its productions, according to Playbill.

In 1991 he brought A Christmas Carol to Broadway as a one-man show and played every part himself. He returned with it in 1992, 1994 and 2001, and it won him the Drama Desk Award for solo performance. He was Prospero in The Tempest in 1995.

Playbill's list of his Broadway credits also includes Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Harold Pinter's The Caretaker and David Mamet's A Life in the Theatre. Rupert Goold's Macbeth, which began at Chichester in 2007 and came through the Brooklyn Academy of Music, earned him his only Tony nomination, in 2008.

The starship captain, bald and certain, standing on a bare stage with a friend, making Beckett funny.

The Winter With McKellen

Then came the double bill. Sean Mathias directed Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land in repertory at the Cort, with Stewart and McKellen leading both plays and Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley alongside. Previews began on October 31, 2013, the pair opened on November 24, and the run closed on March 30, 2014, according to the play's Wikipedia record.

It was his last Broadway engagement. Playbill describes it as his final run on the street.

The theater became the James Earl Jones in 2022. This fall it is home to Wanted, the Clarke sisters musical. The tramps have left the building.

Suite 646's Count

By our arithmetic from the Playbill credits, Stewart's Broadway career runs to nine titles over 43 years, from Brook's Dream in 1971 to the closing of the Beckett and Pinter double bill in 2014. A Christmas Carol alone accounts for four Broadway engagements in a decade, 1991 to 2001. Three of the nine titles are Shakespeare. Two of them, the Beckett and the Pinter, shared one stage on alternating nights.

The screen work is better known. He was Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994, and Professor X across the X-Men films. NBC News reports he appears in a trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, due in December, as Xavier for the eighth time.

What Are People Saying?

Hugh Jackman, his X-Men co-star, called him "a tremendous friend and man," NBC News reports. William Shatner, the original series' Captain Kirk, called him "a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor." Jonathan Frakes, his first officer on the Enterprise, wrote, "Rest in peace my friend."

Broadway lost another of its own this week. For Barbara Barrie, who began and ended her career on West 45th Street, see our remembrance.

He was born in Mirfield, in West Yorkshire, and he died with his wife beside him. In between, for one winter on 48th Street, he waited for Godot on 48th Street and made the waiting feel like company.