Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 28, 1994 TAG: 9411290021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LUAINE LEE KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He'd spent his acting years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was just a tad too grandiose to mix with the hoi polloi on a TV set.
He started by forbidding anyone else to sit in Capt. Jean-Luc Picard's chair, and was constantly annoyed when the cast would make jokes or flub lines or behave without the proper decorum.
``I believe I was something of a pompous ass,'' says Stewart. ``All those attitudes belong to my pre-Americanization phase. I was fortunate enough to work with a group who liked me enough to not want me to go on being a pompous ass.''
Stewart, 54, actually called a company meeting one day. ``I felt the set was much too undisciplined. And thought we should all exhibit much more self control. Can you imagine? I remember Denise Crosby was still on the show. She said, `C'mon, Patrick, it's just fun.' I said, `We are not here to have fun!'''
The cast eventually eroded his British reserve. ``They wore me down,'' he shrugs. ``They wouldn't do the things I wanted them to do. And they'd laugh and laugh and make fun of me.''
Stewart is back in Capt. Picard's spiffy pajamas for the feature film, ``Star Trek Generations,'' a movie passes the torch from Capt. James Kirk to Capt. Picard for future ``Star Trek'' franchises.
With the soaring success of the dull-witted movie ``StarGate,'' it seems that it's the hardware that sells these days. So audiences probably won't care WHO is sitting in the captain's seat.
But Stewart does lend an elegant intelligence to the role and it wouldn't be hard to see him do it again and again.
Stewart was, in fact, terrified that playing the good captain might typecast him forever.
``I've spent the last four years trying to create for myself a career and identity apart from Capt. Picard,'' he says.
And then some! Stewart is seen more places than Rush Limbaugh, from voice-over commercials to a starring voice in the kiddie Christmas movie ``The Pagemaster'' to guiding computerphiles through Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia CD-ROM to hosting Turner's special on MGM.
Starting Dec. 19 he'll bring his one-man show, ``A Christmas Carol,'' to Broadway and on Dec. 5 he narrates ``Stargazers'' on the Discovery Channel.
Yes, all that diversification is deliberate, he says. ``I had a genuine fear that the role would become an albatross.'' But instead, Stewart is now the lead item in columns like this and he just finished starring in the film ``Jeffrey,'' in which he plays the gay lover of a young dancer.
Top that off with the film he's filming now, ``Let It Be Me,'' in which he plays a slightly oily dancing coach. ``We did the fox trot, the quick step, I do a pretty good waltz and my tango is - something to be seen. I had the experience of acting with and dancing with Leslie Caron,'' he grins.
``Four days ago we literally danced down 54th Street to Frank Sinatra singing `Don't Blame it on My Heart, Blame it on My Youth.' I thought that was probably a good moment to end my career. I didn't think it could get much better than that.''
In ``Star Trek: Generations'' Stewart finds himself duking it out with another former Royal Shakespeare emigre, Malcolm McDowell, who plays the villain.
For several years, in another of his one-man shows, Stewart has told the hilarious tale about a young understudy with the RSC who had to fill in, at the last minute, for the star - ``with calamitous results,'' he says.
``I tell in the story that two years later he was an international movie star. I never say who the actor is because I don't think it's appropriate.''
While they were filming in Las Vegas, Stewart overheard McDowell (the young man of the story) relating the same tale.
``I said, `Malcolm, I've been telling that story for the past five years and I do tell it better than you. You've forgotten some of the details. I hope you don't mind.' He said, `Mind? I'd like you to identify me from now on.'''
Break out the popcorn and Milk Duds because the Disney Channel will be offering a free holiday preview by unscrambling its signal from Dec. 1 through 4. (Call your cable operator if you only see squiggles on the screen.) For that uncommon dress parade the channel will offer some specials: a new episode of ``Avonlea,'' ``Billy Joel from the River of Dreams'' and hubby-and-wife team Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson brandishing the Bard with ``Much Ado About Nothing.'' ``The Muppet Christmas Carol'' airs on Dec. 3 at 7 p.m.
by CNB