Patrick Stewart lost all his hair at the age of 18, a change he initially regarded as a setback. Years later, when he was preparing to play Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Gene Roddenberry asked him to abandon a wig, telling him: 'In the 24th Century, they wouldn't care if Picard was bald'.
The actor, whose authority on Shakespearean stages found an immense new audience through Star Trek: The Next Generation, has died at the age of 86.
Stewart was born Patrick Hewes Stewart in Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire on 13 July 1940. His mother, Gladys, was a textile worker, and his father was a former Sergeant Major in the Parachute Regiment.
He left school at 15 and began working as a journalist and obituary writer for the Dewsbury Reporter.
His television career began in 1967, when he played a fireman in an episode of Coronation Street. He later played Lenin in the BBC's 13-part drama series The Fall of Eagles in 1974, and a conspiratorial Roman soldier in I, Claudius in 1976.
The theatre, however, was where Stewart built his early reputation. His Broadway debut came in 1970, as Snout in Peter Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He achieved critical success with the Royal Shakespeare Company before leaving it for the National Theatre in 1984.
Then came the six-year contract to play Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Roddenberry's decision about Picard's appearance gave Stewart's baldness a place in a future where, as the creator and executive producer put it, 'In the 24th Century, they wouldn't care if Picard was bald'.
The role made him a global television and film star while his work as a classical actor continued. After Star Trek brought him international fame, he returned to Shakespeare as Prospero in The Tempest in 1995, then starred as Othello two years later.
He also played Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men film franchise. In 2007, Stewart won critical acclaim opposite Harriet Walter in Antony and Cleopatra.
That same year, he played Macbeth for the first time, with Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth. Nicholas de Jongh called the performance 'the best Macbeth I have ever seen'.
Stewart received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. His career joined classical theatre with mass-audience science fiction and film, allowing Shakespeare and Star Trek to occupy the same public life.
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