Patrick Stewart, A Shakespearean Actor Who Soars In Sci-Fi, Looks Back On His Life In Memoir

NEW YORK — Famous “Star Trek” captain Patrick Stewart has boldly gone into his past where no one has gone before.

The actor spent most of the pandemic at his computer composing his memoir, which will be released this autumn under “Making It So,” a phrase he borrowed from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“My long-term memory is extremely robust. Memory after memory and sensation and sensation and feelings all scuttled back the moment I turned the key on day one, Stewart, 83, said in a Zoom interview from his residence in Los Angeles.

It is a remarkable tale of a child who grew up poor in northern England, became a great Shakespearean stage actor, and then a sci-fi movie icon aboard the USS Enterprise and in the “X-Men” film series.

He grew up in a home without a lavatory or a bathroom, sold furniture as a young man, and worked his way up the regional theatre ranks in England — including touring and a crush on Vivien Leigh — before a 14-year run with the Royal Shakespeare Company and a rise to fame in Los Angeles.

Stewart says in the interview that authoring the book has been a highly therapeutic experience. “I know my therapist is among those anticipating the book the most. I anticipate hearing, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Patrick Stewart, A Shakespearean Actor Who Soars In Sci-Fi, Looks Back On His Life In Memoir.

If there is one shadow, it is that of Stewart’s father, a former British Army regimental sergeant prone to violent eruptions against his mother.

Stewart writes about how he and his elder brother, Trevor, braced for nights when their dad came home drunk and angry. “Sometimes with an outstretched hand, and sometimes with a closed fist. He consistently targeted her cranium.”

Stewart wonders if the violence initiated his career. “The stage would prove to be a safe space, a refuge from real life, in which I could inhabit another person, living in another place and time,” he writes.

Other portraits emerge of those who were kind to Stewart along the way, such as Paul McCartney, Rod Steiger, and Kirk Douglas, as well as those who were not: Stewart commanding one of Gene Roddenberry’s starships was never acceptable to “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry or “Dune” director David Lynch.

“I wanted to be truthful, but I also wanted to be respectful and cautious. The most difficult aspect of the experience was determining how much I should say. What should I refrain from saying?

“It’s almost certain that someone will come forward and say, ‘How dare you?'” That is ludicrous.’ I’ve brought this upon myself. But I took it extremely seriously.”

Patrick Stewart, A Shakespearean Actor Who Soars In Sci-Fi, Looks Back On His Life In a Memoir.

Stewart, preparing to portray Hamlet in 1966, is given an hour-long tutorial by the late great director Peter Hall, widely regarded as the most influential figure in modern British theatre.

Stewart says, “When the hour was up and I checked my notebook, it contained nothing but scribbles.” “I realised that he had opened up this text to me in ways that no one else had ever done before.”

The grace with which he dealt with premature receding is a further example. Stewart would audition with a hairpiece, then remove it and make his case: two actors for the price of one.

Stewart dedicates the book to two influential instructors who instilled in him a passion for Shakespeare and inspired him to pursue a career in acting. Later in his 40s, when he was asked to portray Jean-Luc Picard, a 24th-century starship captain, his appreciation for Shakespeare would prove beneficial.

“The etiquette of their speech and demeanor reminds me of numerous Shakespearean situations in which I had participated onstage. I realized that I should portray Jean Luc as if he were a character from “Henry IV,” which is about courageous men.

Later in life, Stewart explored his sense of humor by donning crustacean costumes and lending his voice to Seth MacFarlane cartoons. People believed it would be entertaining to watch me play against type, he writes.

Throughout the memoir, Stewart is just as critical of himself as anyone else. Again and again, he confesses to mistakes or being unnecessarily stiff, at one point calling himself a “pompous ass.” Stewart explains that his relationship with his offspring is “a work in progress.”

“I needed to do better by the women with whom I was romantically involved,” he writes in one section. My two unsuccessful marriages are my greatest regret in a life filled with happiness and accomplishments.

Writing the book became “some of the happiest days of my life,” he says, despite pausing the audiobook a few times because he was weeping.

Sunny, his wife, observed that he appeared lighter and cheerful after a writing session. “She said I would come down smiling and kind of glowing because of the whole experience of going back.”

SOURCE – (AP)