BREAKING: Legendary actor Patrick Stewart best known as Picard dead at 86

“We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia. He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayers, tears, laughter and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all. We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.”

The actor was remembered in a post that encouraged fans to give to Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund.

Stewart hailed from coal-mining country in Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He studied acting intensely and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, evening bringing his Shakespearean prowess to the small screen as one of Star Trek’s best loved captains.

Stewart played Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation for seven years, from 1987 to 1994 and into films. He also starred in a spin-off in recent years which was simply titled Picard. He played Picard in the films Star Trek Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).

As a stage actor, he played George in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in London in 1986, winning a best actors award at the London Fringe Theater for his performance. He’s won Olivier Awards for his portrayals of Enobarbus from Antony and Cleopatra and Claudius in Hamlet, when he played opposite David Tennant—who had his own sci-fi adventure as Dr. Who opposite Billie Piper.

Stewart was also well-known for his work trying to combat and bring awareness to domestic violence. He was open and honest about the difficulties he faced in that area as a child, when his father, who he called a “weekend alcoholic,” hit his mother. He would come to her aid, even as a child. “I knew exactly when to insert a small body between the fist and her face,” he said in 2009 when discussing his childhood, “a skill no child should ever have to learn.”

He brought it up in his memoir, telling newspapers he wished his “father could have seen this.” He called domestic violence “disgusting and tainting.”

“As a child,” he wrote, “I witnessed his repeated violence against my mother, and the terror and misery he caused was such that, if I felt I could have succeeded, I would have killed him. If my mother had attempted it, I would have held him down. For those who struggle to comprehend these feelings in a child, imagine living in an environment of emotional unpredictability, danger and humiliation week after week, year after year, from the age of seven. My childish instinct was to protect my mother, but the man hurting her was my father, whom I respected, admired and feared.”

His pivot from Shakespeare to science fiction was in his 40s and he elevated the style of acting in the genre despite being mocked for having started “slumming it,” as his critics said. “What snobbery,” he said of those critics in 2003. “For huge numbers of people, I will always be Jean-Luc Picard, and that’s fine. I really think we created an admirable individual.