Lifeforce Star Patrick Stewart Dies At 86

Patrick Stewart has died at 86. ComicBook.com reports he passed away on October 28 at his home in Los Angeles, according to a statement posted to his social media channels.

The statement said he died “following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia,” surrounded by family and friends, including his wife Sunny.

Stewart is best known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek and Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, but horror fans know him from Tobe Hooper’s 1985 cult classic Lifeforce. He played Dr. Armstrong, a psychiatrist who gets possessed by a space vampire partway through the film, leading to a bizarre same-sex kiss with Steve Railsback’s character that became one of the movie’s most talked about scenes.

He was knighted in 2010 for his services to drama and kept working into his 80s, returning as Professor X for a cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022.

In lieu of flowers, his family asked that donations go to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund.