Patrick Stewart has died at 86. A statement on his official social media account said he died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia," CBC News reports. He was best known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, but his career began on stage: he grew up in Mirfield, Yorkshire, trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and spent years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, later playing Broadway and the West End with Ian McKellen. He was a patron of Refuge, a UK charity for domestic abuse survivors, and during the COVID-19 lockdowns posted a Shakespeare sonnet a day online. The family asked for donations to Alzheimer's research and caregiver charities in lieu of flowers.

Marvel Studios, Hugh Jackman, Jonathan Frakes and William Shatner were among those paying tribute. It was the week's most-upvoted story on Hacker News, where the thread filled with commenters' memories of watching The Next Generation as children and of his lockdown sonnet readings.