To Star Trek fans, he will always be Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but to his father- in-law, Sir Patrick Stewart is known as ‘son’ – even though the actor is five years OLDER than his wife’s dad.
The 75-year-old star is married to musician Sunny Ozell, who is 39 years his junior. And although Ozell’s father was initially ‘not thrilled’ with the romance, the two men have grown to be friends.
Stewart said: ‘He rings me up and says, “Hey son, it’s your father here.” ’
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, Ozell added that the hardest part of their relationship was meeting Stewart’s children from his first marriage to Sheila Falconer, who are now aged 42 and 47.
She said: ‘That was territory I trod on very lightly. I didn’t want to force myself on them but they were very welcoming.’
And she said the age gap was irrelevant. ‘He is so youthful and I guess I’m kind of an old worry wart so we bridge the gap. It doesn’t come up much. He’s in better shape than me, which infuriates me.’
And Stewart said: ‘I remember my 40th birthday vividly and I swear to God it was last week. I have a little bit of arthritis but I don’t feel any different.’
The couple met through a mutual friend in 2008 when American singer-songwriter Ozell was working as a waitress in New York. They married in September 2013 on the banks of Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in a wedding officiated by Stewart’s best friend and fellow actor Sir Ian McKellen.
Both later confessed that while the ceremony was touching, the reception was a boisterous affair.
Sunny Ozell was starstruck when her future husband walked through the door.
‘I was a little freaked out by seeing Patrick Stewart in my restaurant,’ says the singer, who was working as a waitress in a pizzeria in Brooklyn at the time.
That’s not surprising, given that he has one of the most famous faces on this or any other planet.
The boldly bald actor with the commanding presence and deep, Shakespearean voice is best known as Professor Xavier in the X-Men movies, or as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
He was fast approaching 70, and running away from the Hollywood lifestyle by appearing as Macbeth at a theatre nearby.
Ozell had just turned 30, and was making a name for herself as a singer in the jazz clubs of New York. Despite the age gap, they still felt a powerful attraction.
Seven years later, they are man and wife, sitting close together in the corner of a modest bakery in Hampstead, north London, where they have come for coffee and pastries and to talk publicly for the first time about how they got together – as she launches her debut album, Take It With Me.
It’s a gorgeous, moody, late-night kind of record, on which Ozell and her band of accomplished New York players blend jazz, folk and Americana. They cover songs by some of the greats, including Randy Newman, Roy Orbison and Tom Waits.
Stewart has been tweeting about it, having lately bloomed into one of the most entertaining Twitter users.
The stern-looking actor has shown his lighter side since he met Ozell, dressing up as a lobster, wearing a dancing Santa hat and auctioning the chance to have a selfie taken with him and his friend Ian McKellen, all for charity.
The two actors even shared a kiss on the red carpet outside the premiere of Mr Holmes in June, with Ozell watching and grinning.
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