A Scholarship Took Patrick Stewart From Yorkshire to the Stage and Stardom

Sir Patrick Stewart died at home in Los Angeles. He was 86 and had been briefly ill with Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia, his family said.

A drama-school scholarship that covered his tuition turned a childhood in a working-class home in Yorkshire, in the north of England, into a path to the stage and, later, worldwide screen fame.

After drama school, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, a theater company devoted largely to the plays of William Shakespeare. There he earned praise as part of the company.

After that stage work, he reached television and film audiences far beyond theater. He won millions of fans around the world playing Captain Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a science fiction television series about the crew of an exploring starship, where he played the calm and diplomatic commander. He also won fans playing Professor X across the X-Men movies, a series of superhero movies about mutants with extraordinary powers, where he played the mentor who leads the younger heroes.

Tributes poured in after news of his death. In 2010 he received a knighthood for his work in drama, an honor that carries the title Sir.

Stewart once described his own measure of a life in these words: "What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. After all, we're only mortal."