"Beam me up Scotty!" If that line of dialogue is unfamiliar to you, then we don't where you've been for the last 40 years. The legendary, mid-'60s cult series Star Trek was the program, and those words were uttered by Captain Kirk and directed to the one and only Montgomery Scott (aka Scotty), his faithful chief engineer on the Starship Enterprise. It was a role that was, is, and forever will be identified with actor James Doohan. Sadly, Doohan lost his battle with Alzheimer's disease on July 20 at his Redmond, Washington home. He was 85.

Born on March 3, 1920 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Doohan left home at 19 and enrolled in the Royal Canadian Artillery. He fought in the D-day landings of World War II and was wounded in the process, losing the middle finger of his right hand. After the war, Doohan decided to fullfill a childhood dream of acting, and in 1946, he won a scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, where he trained over the next three years before striking out on his own, on both the New York and Toronto stage.

It took a long time of slooging though some bit parts in film, and some radio work, but Doohan began to get some steady offers for guest slots on some of the most popular television programs of the early '60s: (The Fugitive, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, Bonanza); and was even getting some notable principle parts in some hit films: (The Wheeler Dealers (1963), Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965), before he found his signature role of Scotty in the Sci-Fi classic Star Trek. For three seasons (1966-69), Doohan took his his effective Scottish brogue, and rolled it around some classic lines (i.e. "I can't reach the control Captain!" and "She can't handle the power!") that are now part of our pop lexicon. Indeed, it's impossible to think of any other actor employing such sly, playful performances to counter the camp overacting of William Shatner (Captain Kirk) and the grave stoicism of Leonard Nimoy (Spock).

After the cancellation of Star Trek, there was little going for Doohan for awhile, save for a few more guest shots on television: Marcus Welby, Daniel Boone. Things might have looked bleak for Doohan, yet one thing he didn't count on the ensuing years was the growing internation cult of Star Trek, and in 1979, Doohan began appearing in what would be a string of theatrical features based on his old series: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

Doohan would never find a role that would shake the image of Scotty, but shed no tears for the man - because by all accounts, he loved the adulation that Trekkie fans from all over the world gave him. He attended numerous fan conventions, lectured at various colleges, and most amusingly, appeared on shows (The Ben Stiller Show) and films (Loaded Weapon 1 1993) that lampooned his famous television character. In 1996, he published his autobiography, cheekily titled Beam Me Up, Scotty, but personal appearances to promote the book were curtailed because of his ill health. He made one last hurrah of a public showcase when he accepted his star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame in 2004. Doohan is survived by his wife, Wende; sons, Eric and Thomas; and daughter, Sarah.

by Michael "Mitch" Toole