It’s been a bad week for Star Trek fans. First it was the passing of Walter Koenig, the 90-year-old costar of the original series and several movies. Today it was the passing of Patrick Stewart, who for nearly four decades was Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” TV series and early 2000s. He revisited the character more recently in three seasons of “Picard.”
I guess I didn’t realize Stewart was 86. He always looked a little older, thanks to his balding head and gravitas. (Hey, I was a teenager in the ‘80s, everyone looked older.) But his career — on stage first in Bristol, England — had stretched back to 1959.
Stewart is exactly what Star Trek needed. “The Next Generation” was critical in the three decades of Star Trek TV we’ve had since the show’s 1987 premiere. It’s hard to imagine anyone than Stewart in the role.
It was only two years into his role as Picard that I happened to see Stewart in his first movie role, 1975’s “Hedda.”
I happened to see “Hedda” in my college drama class in 1989. Had read “Hedda Gabler” in another drama class, but this was the first time I had ever seen it. Glenda Jackson was a terrific Hedda Gabler, the woman trapped in a loveless marriage who will do anything. She gets back involved with her husband’s rival, a former lover, Lövborg, played by Stewart.
It took a few minutes to see a black-bearded, full-haired Lövborg as Stewart, 15 years earlier. I’m dopey that way. Goes to show a dumb American like me that Stewart, long before Picard, was a brilliant actor.
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