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James Doohan
passed away, with his wife of 28 years Wende at his side, at
his Seattle suburb of Redmond, Washington home at 5:30 a.m.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005. He was 85 years old. Doohan will
probably best be known for his portrayal of Montgomery Scott,
Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise from the 1960's
television series 'Star Trek'.
James Montgomery Doohan was
born March 3, 1920, in Vancouver, British Columbia, youngest
of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian
and dentist, and his wife Sarah. As he wrote in his
autobiography, "Beam Me Up, Scotty," his father was
a drunk who made life miserable for his wife and children.
At 19, James escaped the
turmoil at home by joining the Canadian army, becoming a
lieutenant in artillery. He was among the Canadian forces that
landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. "The sea was rough,"
he recalled. "We were more afraid of drowning than the
Germans."
The Canadians crossed a
minefield laid for tanks; the soldiers weren't heavy enough to
detonate the bombs. At 11:30 that night, he was
machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle
right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on
screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. The chest
bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case. Doohan
recovered and return to action as a fighter pilot.
After the war Doohan on a whim
enrolled in a drama class in Toronto. He showed promise and
won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood
Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony
Randall and Richard Boone.
Doohan was a prolific voice
actor on Canadian radio before making his move into television
in the 1950s, starting with a Canadian series called
"Space Command."
In 1966 he was auditioning for
the role of a engineer in a new space adventure. A master of
dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven
different accents.
"The producers (Gene
Roddenberry) asked me which one I preferred," Doohan
recalled 30 years later. "I believed the Scot voice was
the most commanding. So I told them, 'If this character is
going to be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman.'
" Doohan had learned to do a convincing brogue from a
Scottish-born soldier he bunked with during the war.
So was born Lt. Commander
Scott, the miracle worker Chief Engineer who would retort 'you
can't change the laws of physics' when the Enterprise would be
in a spot of trouble.
One of Scotty's chief functions
on the show was to operate the transporter device used to
"beam" crew members aboard the Enterprise from
distant planets -- often in response to the order: "Beam
me up, Scotty."
The powerfully built Doohan
spoke frankly in 1998 about his employer.
"I started out in the
series at basic minimum -- plus 10 percent for my agent. That
was added a little bit in the second year. When we finally got
to our third year, Paramount told us we'd get second-year pay!
That's how much they loved us."
He made guest appearances on
numerous TV shows, from "Gunsmoke" to
"Bewitched," and cited his favorite film role as
that of a French trapper in the 1971 picture "Man in the
Wilderness," which starred Richard Harris and John
Huston.
Doohan became a father at the
age of 80 with the birth of his daughter Sarah in 2000. He had
two other children, sons Eric and Thomas with his wife of 28
years Wende Doohan.
In 2004 Doohan was diagnosed
with the degenerative neurological illness Alzheimer's and
withdrew from most public appearances. His last public
appearance was in October, when the performer, confined to a
wheelchair, was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame.
Doohan's death is attributed he
deteriorating effects of Alzheimer's and to complications from
pneumonia. The Canadian-born actor also had suffered from the
chronic lung disease pulmonary fibrosis, which doctors
believed was linked to Doohan's exposure to hazardous
chemicals during his military service in World War II.
Co-stars recounted that
Scotty's signature traits -- avuncular, emotional, determined,
loyal -- were all hallmarks of Doohan's off-camera
personality.
"He was very much like
that. He really drew from himself when he performed the
role," said Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Chekov on
the show.
Funeral services would be for
family members only, but Doohan's wife plans to send the
actor's ashes into space via the private launch service that
carried Roddenberry's remains into orbit after his 1991 death
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