History Creator / JamesDoohan

James Montgomery Doohan (March 3, 1920 -- July 20, 2005) was a Canadian actor known to every ScienceFiction fan as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott; [[TheEngineer the plucky engineer]] of the starship Enterprise in ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}''. He was arguably one of the most popular characters on the show. Part of this is down to the fact that he was one of the more kindly stars on the show and took great lengths to acknowledge the fans that made the show so popular, always being happy to spend time chatting to the fans. His work as Scotty also proved as the inspiration for many people to take up engineering as a profession. Wiki/TheOtherWiki put it best when they said "Doohan was considered by some to be one of the most giving and affable stars of the ''Star Trek'' franchise." One of his proudest moments [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsSdLD_YodQ involved talking a fan out of suicide]], eventually finding out that because of him, she had gone and achieved a degree in engineering, just one of many young fans who were inspired by Doohan to become engineers themselves.

James Montgomery Doohan (March 3, 1920 -- July 20, 2005) was a Canadian actor known to every ScienceFiction fan as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott; [[TheEngineer the plucky engineer]] of the starship Enterprise in ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}''. He was arguably one of the most popular characters on the show. Part of this is down to the fact that he was one of the more kindly stars on the show and took great lengths to acknowledge the fans that made the show so popular, always being happy to spend time chatting to the fans. His work as Scotty also proved as the inspiration for many people to take up engineering as a profession. Wiki/TheOtherWiki put it best when they said "Doohan was considered by some to be one of the most giving and affable stars of the Star Trek franchise." One of his proudest moments [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsSdLD_YodQ involved talking a fan out of suicide]], eventually finding out that because of him, she had gone and achieved a degree in engineering, just one of many young fans who were inspired by Doohan to become engineers themselves.

Born in Vancouver, he served in the Canadian Army during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and survived charging up Juno Beach on D-Day, only to be accidentally machine-gunned by his own side while returning from a night patrol. His life was saved thanks to a bullet [[PocketProtector bouncing off a cigarette case in his chest pocket]]; however, he lost the middle finger on his right hand in the process. He took great lengths to conceal that injury on TV, even using hand doubles for close-ups, but the injury is occasionally visible, such as in TNG's "Relics" or during the early bridge scenes of ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier''.

----

It was clear that, although he was originally considered a semi-regular on Star Trek, that Scotty was an important character nonetheless, often being the man put in command of the Enterprise while Kirk and Spock went down on away missions and much more often pulling off miracles down in Engineering. Doohan was also an accomplished voice actor and contributed many voices on the main show and on the animated series as well. In fact, if you include all his voices in the animated series, he had biggest number of roles in the franchise! One of his most famous scenes in ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' was during the popular "The Trouble With Tribbles" episode, where he refuses to let Chekov fight a Klingon insulting Kirk, only to attack first once the Klingon insulted the ''Enterprise'' herself.