Actors - Patrick Stewart

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	Actors - Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart, OBE, (born July 13, 1940 in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England) is an English film, television, and stage actor. Throughout his career, he has performed various characters in Shakespearean productions. However, he is best known to the public at large for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and as Professor Xavier in X-Men
, X2
and the upcoming third installment X3. He has led a distinguished career in the theatre for nearly fifty years. His bald head and classically trained vocal mannerisms are his most recognised traits.

Biography

His first appearance on stage was at a local outdoor history pageant as Tom of Towngate when he was nine years old. At the age of 12, he entered the local secondary modern school where he continued to study drama. He has said that "the greatest thing that ever happened to me" was after he read Shylock aloud in front of his class and his teacher told him, "Stewart, you're good at this. You should do it for a living."

At 15, he dropped out of school and increased his participation in local theatre. He acquired a job as a newspaper reporter, but after a year, his employer gave him an ultimatum to choose acting or journalism. He quit the job. His brother tells the story that Stewart would attend rehearsals during work time and then invent the stories he reported. Supposedly, this caught up with him the night of a large fire of which, when questioned by his boss, he knew nothing about.

At 16 he was a furniture salesman, and in 1957 at the age of 17, he embarked on a two-year acting course at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He lost most of his hair by the age of 19 (alopecia runs in his family), but he successfully sold himself to theatre producers, after performing an audition with and without a wig, as "two actors for the price of one!". In 1964 he met the Old Vic's choreographer Sheila Falconer and they married on March 4, 1966. They had two children, Daniel Freedom Stewart and Sophie Alexandra Stewart, and divorced in 1990.

Following a period with the Manchester Library Theatre, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966 where he appeared next to actors such as Ben Kingsley and Ian Richardson — and even played on the company's football (soccer) team. He then moved to the Royal National Theatre in the early 1980s. Over the years, Stewart took roles in many major television series without ever becoming a household name. He appeared as Sejanus in I, Claudius; Karla in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People; Claudius in a 1980 BBC adaptation of Hamlet and took the romantic male lead in the BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's North and South (wearing a hairpiece).

Diehard fans will recognize him in a minor role as King Leondegrance in John Boorman's Excalibur
(1981). He played the character Gurney Halleck in David Lynch's 1984 film version of Dune. Much of his part was cut from the original release of the film due to editing made to make the immensely long film shorter. Much of this footage was restored for the Fox Television broadcast of the film.

In 1987, after doing a Shakespeare Seminar at UCSB, Stewart went to Los Angeles to star as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994). From 1994 he also portrayed Picard in the movie spin-offs Star Trek: Generations
(1994), Star Trek: First Contact
(1996), Star Trek: Insurrection
(1998), and Star Trek: Nemesis
(2002). In 1997 he was engaged to Voyager production assistant Wendy Neuss and they married on August 25, 2000, only to later divorce on October 14, 2003. His life was substantially changed by Star Trek, and he has been quoted as saying:

:"It was almost entirely a blessing. It introduced me to a world I never expected to be a part of — celebrity, fame, financial success. It also gave me the chance to work with the finest group of people I've ever known."

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Patrick Stewart ]

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Actors - Patrick Stewart

Biography

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