Actors - James Doohan

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	Actors - James Doohan

James Montgomery Doohan (March 3, 1920 – July 20, 2005) was an Irish-Canadian character and voice actor best known for his portrayal of Scotty in the television and film series Star Trek. His characterization made him one of the most popular characters in the Star Trek franchise universe.

Life and career

Doohan (pronounced DOO-en) was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, youngest of four children of William and Sarah Doohan, recent Catholic refugees from mainly Protestant Belfast during the Anglo-Irish War. His family later moved to Sarnia, Ontario where he attended high school at the Sarnia Collegiate Institute and Technical School (SCITS) where he excelled in mathematics and science. Doohan's father, who worked at times as a dentist, pharmacist, and veterinarian, is said to have invented a high-octane gasoline in 1923, but according to Doohan's autobiography, was an alcoholic who tormented his family.

At the outbreak of World War II, aged 19, Jimmy Doohan joined the Royal Canadian Artillery, and was eventually commissioned as a lieutenant in the 13th Field Regiment, part of the divisional artillery of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. Doohan went to the United Kingdom in 1940 for what became years of training. His first combat assignment was the invasion of Normandy at Juno Beach on D-Day. Shooting two snipers along the way, Doohan led his unit to higher ground through a field of tank mines and took defensive positions for the night. Crossing between command posts at 11:30 that night, Doohan took six hits from a German machine gun: four in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his middle right finger. The chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case; the shot finger was amputated, and on screen he would generally conceal this. Despite his wounds, Doohan remained in the military, trained as a pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and flew an artillery observation plane, though he was once labeled the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces".

After the war, Doohan started his acting career after being disheartened by the laughable quality of a radio drama, leading him to bone up on Shakespeare, and with his first work a CBC radio show appearance on January 12, 1946. He took a drama class in Toronto, and later won a two-year scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where classmates included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone. For several years he would shuttle between Toronto and New York as work demanded. During this period Doohan appeared on some 4000 radio programs and 400 television programs, and earned a reputation for his versatility. In the mid-1950s he appeared as forest ranger "Timber Tom" (the northern counterpart of Buffalo Bob) in the Canadian version of Howdy Doody. He also played the lead role in the CBC TV drama production "Flight into Danger", based on Arthur Hailey's novel Runway Zero-Eight, later adapted as Terror in the Sky and spoofed in Airplane!
. His credits also included The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Bewitched (episode 12, season 2) and Fantasy Island.

Star Trek

Doohan always had a gift for using foreign accents. Auditioning for the role of Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise, before Gene Roddenberry (the creator of Star Trek), Doohan did several different accents. Roddenberry asked which he preferred, and Doohan reportedly replied "If you're going to have an engineer, you'd better make him Scottish" (or "All the world's best engineers have been Scottish"). In later years he would revisit this casting process at Star Trek conventions, demonstrating a variety of possible voices and characters. When Roddenberry produced Star Trek: The Animated Series in the early 1970s, Doohan's ability to perform different voices was utilized by having him perform most "guest star" male roles in the series, including Robert April, conjectured first captain of the Enterprise.

The Scott character, as conceived, would have been a semi-regular, but just as fellow cast members Leonard Nimoy, as the alien science officer Spock, and DeForest Kelley, as the irascible medical officer Dr. McCoy, were elevated in importance to leads alongside William Shatner's Capt. James T. Kirk, it was made clear that Lt. Cmdr. Scott was the third-in-command of the Enterprise and at times the ship was left in his care. Scott was frequently used in subplots regarding disabled ship components (such as the dilithium crystals which powered the warp drive, the transporter teleportation device, or just fiddling in the Jefferies tubes) and as a foil for Kirk's ambitious tactical approaches, which were said to strain the propulsion and defenses of the starship. In the end, many fans saw the Enterprise itself as the show's star, leaving Scott in an enviable position as her defender. Doohan was often quoted as saying, "Scotty is 99% James Doohan and 1% accent."

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Actors - James Doohan

Life and career

Star Trek

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