Sir Patrick Stewart, the Yorkshire actor who spent six decades on stage and screen and became Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard, has died aged 86. A statement on his official social media channels said he died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, with his wife beside him, after "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy body Dementia".

Born in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, in 1940, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966 and was a classical stage actor for two decades before Star Trek: The Next Generation cast him as Picard in 1987. He played the captain across seven series, four films and three seasons of Star Trek: Picard. In 2000 he became Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men, a part he kept for more than twenty years. He was knighted in 2010.

He spoke often about his childhood, when he watched his father, a soldier, beat his mother. He became a patron of Refuge, the domestic violence charity, and backed Combat Stress, which treats veterans with trauma, saying he believed his father had suffered from untreated shell shock.

The statement asked that, in place of flowers, people give to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Fund, among other causes.