This article is for quizzes on Tuesday July 21st, 2015...
Sir Patrick Stewart OBE (born 13 July 1940) is an English film, television, and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career on stage and screen. He is most widely known for his roles as Captain
Jean-Luc Picard in
Star Trek: The Next Generation and its
successor films, as
Professor Charles Xavier in the
X-Men film series of superhero movies (2000–2014), his prolific stage roles with the
Royal Shakespeare Company, and his many voice acting roles, most notably as CIA deputy director
Avery Bullock in
American Dad!.
Following a period with
Manchester's Library Theatre, he became a member of the
Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, remaining with them until 1982. He was an Associate Artist of the company in 1968.
He appeared with actors such as
Ben Kingsley and
Ian Richardson. In January 1967, he made his debut TV appearance on
Coronation Street as a Fire Officer. In 1969, he had a brief TV cameo role as
Horatio, opposite Ian Richardson's
Hamlet, in a performance of the gravedigger scene as part of episode six of Sir
Kenneth Clark's
Civilisation television series.
He made his Broadway debut as
Snout in
Peter Brook's legendary
production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream, 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
Vladimir Lenin in
Fall of Eagles;
Sejanus in
I, Claudius;
Karla in
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and
Smiley's People;
Claudius in a 1980 BBC adaptation of
Hamlet. He even took the romantic male lead in the 1975
BBC adaptation of
Elizabeth Gaskell's
North and South (wearing a hairpiece). He also took the lead, playing Psychiatric Consultant Dr. Edward Roebuck in a BBC TV series called
Maybury in 1981.
