Scotty died.It occurred to me -while I read countless articles about his death and life and that little death after Star Trek- that he seems to be most famous for peforming a fictional task he, actually, rarely performed... and for not replying to a famous line no one ever actually uttered.
He meant a lot to Star Trek fans... but he meant a lot more than that... and his epitaph should certainly be more than four lousy words.
James Montgomery Doohan was born March 3, 1920, in Vancouver, British Columbia. At 19, he joined the Canadian army; became a lieutenant in artillery. He was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. 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;pay attention... you'll see what I mean), four in his leg and one in the chest. Fortunately the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.
After the war he enrolled -on a whim- in a drama class in Toronto. He showed promise and won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where his fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone, among others. He already had a career as a character actor when he answered the cattle call for a role as an engineer in a new space-opera-adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years as a radio voice actor, he used seven different accents in the sesson before he settled on the Scotsman.
He inspired countless to go into engineering; he inspired many to go into space.
He was, by all accounts, a decent, gentle guy.
James Doohan died.
The word is given... warp speed....
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