Wednesday, July 20, 2005

It's worse than that, he's dead Jim.



Today, Canadian actor James Doohan aka Scotty, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise from the original series of Star Trek died today at 85.

Dammit Jim.

Doohan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, youngest of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, and his wife Sarah; his family later moved to Sarnia, Ontario where he attended high school at "SCITS", Sarnia Collegiate Institute and Technical School and excelled in math and science.

During World War II, he participated in the invasion of Juno Beach on D-Day as a captain with the Royal Canadian Artillery. 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), four in his leg and one in the chest. The chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case. Returning from the war, Doohan started his acting career with a CBC radio show appearance on January 12, 1946. He also enrolled in a drama class in Toronto, later he won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone.


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