Patrick Stewart died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles at age 86, according to a statement from his longtime spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak, which Al Jazeera, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, NBC News, NPR and TODAY all report.

The statement said he passed "in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny" following "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia." His death came just days after Walter Koenig, the original series' Chekov, also died.

Stewart was born July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, in a house without a bathroom, and The Hollywood Reporter details a childhood marked by his father's violence toward his mother — abuse Stewart later attributed, after decades, to likely undiagnosed PTSD from the war.

He wrote in a 2009 essay that the stage "was a far safer place for me than anything I had to live through at home — it offered escape."

After a scholarship to Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, spending 14 years there playing Mark Antony, Henry IV, Shylock and Oberon before film roles in "Excalibur" (1981) and David Lynch's "Dune" (1984).

The remarkable part of the story, as The Hollywood Reporter tells it, is that Stewart took the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard expecting failure. Producer Robert Justman saw him reading Shakespeare at a UCLA lecture; Gene Roddenberry reportedly doubted a bald Brit could lead the series.

Stewart signed a six-year contract purely because everyone assured him the show would be canceled. "Every single person I spoke to... said, 'You'll be lucky to make it through the first year,'" he recalled.

"Star Trek: The Next Generation" instead ran seven seasons and 178 episodes, and NPR reports Ian McKellen even advised him, "Don't do this, Patrick. You're a very good stage actor. That's where you ought to be."

Beginning with 2000's "X-Men," Stewart played Professor Charles Xavier across eight films, including the acclaimed "Logan" (2017) opposite Hugh Jackman, and Variety and NBC News report he filmed a final appearance as the character in December's "Avengers: Doomsday."

Marvel Studios said he defined Professor X "for generations of fans," and Kevin Feige praised his warmth and "quiet strength and gravitas." The Royal Shakespeare Company hailed him as "a colossus of both stage and screen."

While the world knew him as Picard, the obituaries insist his foundation was classical theater. Al Jazeera highlights his 2007 Macbeth — his only Tony Award nomination — which The Times of London called "an enthralling creation of frailty, appetite, egotism and grim humour."

He also teamed with Ian McKellen in "Waiting for Godot" and "No Man's Land" on the West End and Broadway. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 2010 for services to drama.

His family's statement closed with a quote from his 2023 memoir "Making It So": "In the end, he feels the call of home, as do I." TODAY reports the Hollywood Walk of Fame will place flowers on his star, and survivors include his wife Sunny Ozell and children Daniel and Sophia.

The statement emphasized his philanthropy for domestic violence survivors, refugees, veterans and animal welfare — "the dignity, compassion and humanity he brought to every role — in his art and life."