Star Trek’s Patrick Stewart Gets a Star of His Own
He’s traveled the stars in TV and the movies. Now, Patrick Stewart has a star he can call his own on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the syndicated TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94) and in the current film Star Trek: First Contact, was given the famous “live long and prosper” salute from a crowd of three hundred faithful Trekkies outside the Galaxy theater (how appropriate) complex on Monday, December 16th.
Stewart’s stage and screen career has spanned nearly 38 years. But his kinship with Hollywood is even longer. “My history here on Hollywood Boulevard is over 100 years old,” said Stewart who was excited that his star was next to fellow Englishman, comedian Stan Laurel.
Stewart explained that his grandfather was a stage carpenter and his grandmother cared for the children of the stage workers, including a tiny Stan Laurel. “Being on the same block as Stan Laurel is unbearably exciting and almost too much of an honor,” said Stewart, who was voted the “Sexiest Man on TV” in a 1992 TV Guide readers poll. “I appeared at a convention where a 9-year-old kid sitting next to a pretty woman stood up, pointed to her, and asked me if I would marry his Mom!” recalled Stewart in a 1994 interview.
Before being immortalized in concrete yesterday, the 56 year old actor (and playwright) had already achieved immortality among Star Trek fans as Captain Picard whose famous command “Make it so” has become a Star Trek catch phrase. He has also appeared in such prestigious projects as the acclaimed BBC (and later PBS) TV mini-series, I, Claudius (1976), and such films as John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981) and Star Trek: Generations (1994), as well as numerous stage productions including A Christmas Carol, which he adapted and for which he won a Drama Desk Award. With such dedication to the performing arts, this stellar thespian richly deserved his recent indoctrination into the Walk of Fame, and it was only a matter of time before Hollywood “made it so.”