Ian McKellen pays special tribute to late Patrick Stewart

Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues.

He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.”He continued, “We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions.

My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in ‘Star Trek’. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK.

Do you really want to risk—getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”.

Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.”“America was his adopted….

But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire,” the British actor further wrote in the caption.It is pertinent to mention here that Patrick Stewart died at the age of 86 due to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Ian McKellen pays special tribute to late Patrick Stewart October 30, 2026.