James Doohan
During the Second World War Doohan was a captain in the Royal Canadian Artillery and took part in the D-Day landings on Juno Beach where he lost a finger to a bullet. Although he was not a member of the air force, he did fly during the war and earned a reputation as “the craziest pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force” after nearly crashing in Holland.
After the war Doohan studied acting in New York and, from 1953, appeared in 400 television episodes and 4000 radio shows in Canada. A move to Hollywood led to parts in television shows such as The Twilight Zone.
But it was the science fiction series Star Trek that gave Doohan his most memorable role as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise. Doohan tried out several accents for Gene Roddenberry, the show’s creator, but chose Scottish because, in his opinion, “all the world’s best engineers have been Scottish”.
Star Trek was cancelled after three years and Doohan found himself typecast in Scottish roles despite his skill with a variety of accents. But he enjoyed meeting fans of the show on the convention circuit and often entertained them with a song. His public appearances and, from 1979, seven Star Trek films kept him financially secure.
His character in Star Trek regularly saved the ship and its crew with his engineering knowledge, and Doohan’s performance inspired a generation of students to make it their field of study. So many students at the Milwaukee School of Engineering cited Scotty as their inspiration that Doohan was awarded an honorary doctorate in Engineering.
Doohan was married three times and had seven children, the last at the age of eighty. After suffering from Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease later in life, Doohan died of pneumonia on 20 July 2005. Almost two years later, on 28 April 2007, a few grams of his ashes were sent into suborbital space for four minutes before returning to Earth.
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