James Doohan as "Montgomery" Scott
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As the chief engineer on the fictional Star Trek spaceship USS
Enterprise, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott cut an often flustered figure.
He dealt, on a seemingly weekly basis, with the ship's
overloaded reactors and damaged warp drives. His plaintive, if somewhat
unauthentic, Scottish cry - "I dannae ken if she can take any more,
Captain!" - rang through the outer edges of the cosmos as Captain James T
Kirk urged even more power out of the craft. For millions of TV viewers
worldwide, this low budget science fiction show was the highlight of the
week and Scotty one of its best-loved characters.
Cult status
Even though the original series ran for only three years,
subsequent repeats and a series of highly-successful spin-offs and feature
movies brought Star Trek huge cult status.
Doohan saw action on D-Day
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It made the man behind Scotty, actor James Doohan, into
one of the entertainment world's most familiar faces. James Montgomery
Doohan (he shared a name with his most famous character) was not, in fact, a
Scot but a Canadian.
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1920, his early
life, like that of his contemporaries, was dominated by World War II.
Wartime exploits
Doohan's wartime experiences were every bit as
hair-raising as his fictional fights with the Klingons. As a captain in the
Royal Canadian Artillery Regiment, he lost a finger on the first morning of
the D-Day landings in Normandy.
He then saw a tank, which was carrying his substantial
winnings from a cross-Channel card school, blown to pieces before his eyes.
Besides this, his aerobatic exploits, which included nearly crashing his
aircraft in Holland while taking "a look" at a German U-boat, earned him the
title of "the craziest pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force". After the
war, Doohan spent two years studying acting at New York City's Neighborhood
Playhouse, where he later taught.
Strong character
Returning to Canada in 1953, he worked in 4,000 radio
programmers and 400 television shows before moving to Hollywood. There he
enjoyed small parts in TV shows such as Peyton Place, The Virginian and The
Twilight Zone.
Capricious spacecraft: The USS Enterprise
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But it was with Star Trek, which first aired in 1966, that Jimmy Doohan
got his first real taste of stardom. Working alongside fellow Canadian
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, he benefited from the
strong characterization which offset the show's small budget. Avuncular and
wise, Scotty appeared a loyal and steadfast officer.
His ability to conjure solutions to the Enterprise's
regular engineering crises often made him the savior of his beloved ship.
Trekkies' favorite
The series lasted two years fewer than the Enterprise's
"five-year mission...to boldly go where no man has gone before".
But the continuing interest created by constant repeats led,
in 1979, to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a worldwide box-office hit and
the first of seven Star Trek movies. Though his other work made little
impact, Doohan enjoyed a lucrative old age as the star of many Star Trek
conventions.
The programmer's fans, or Trekkies as they are known,
found him an approachable and affable figure who often entertained the
crowds with his singing.
Inspiring engineer
Star Trek's impact became apparent when he was awarded an
honorary doctorate in Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering,
after half the students there said that Scotty had inspired them to take up
the subject.
Kirk and his crew face more peril
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And in 2000, aged 80, Doohan boldly went into fatherhood for the seventh
time when his then 43-year-old wife gave birth to a daughter, Sarah.
Paradoxically, the catchphrase for which Doohan will be best remembered was
said to, and not by, him. Adopted now as a throw-away line in any desperate
situation, "Beam me up, Scotty!" has become a part of the linguistic
currency.
In the same way, James Doohan's most famous creation is, and will remain,
one of TV's favorite characters.
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