James Montgomery Doohan was born on March 3, 1920, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. After attending high school, he enlisted in the 102nd Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps and joined the Canadian Royal Artillery at the beginning of World War II. After begin commissioned a Lieutenant, he was sent to England and took part to the D-Day operations after training. He got wounded and lost his right hand’s middle finger, but still served, even as an aviator.
James Doohan auditioned for the role of chief engineer of the Enterprise in the TV show “Star Trek” doing different accents, but said to the producer Gene Roddenberry that in his experience the best engineers are Scottish, and in the end the Scottish accent became one of Montgomery “Scotty” Scott’s trademarks. His character didn’t appear in all episodes but still had an impact on the audience which included inspiration to study engineering.
Throughout his life, James Doohan has been married three times and had a total of 7 children. In the last years of his life he had a series of health problems, and on July 20, 2005, he died following complications of pulmonary fibrosis. He got cremated and part of his ashes were sent into space on SpaceX’s Dragon space cargo ship on May 22, 2012. His son Chris played Scott in “Star Trek Continues”, a web series that pays homage to the original series. It’s another demonstration of how much that show influenced James Doohan’s life.
