Star Trek Pin-up #49 FRAMED James “Scotty” Doohan

Description

James Montgomery “Jimmy” Doohan (March 3, 1920 – July 20, 2005) was a Canadian character and voice actor best known for his role as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the television and film series Star Trek. Doohan’s characterization of the Scottish Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise was one of the most recognizable elements in the Star Trek franchise, for which he also made several contributions behind the scenes. Many of the characterizations, mannerisms, and expressions that he established for Scotty and other Star Trek characters have become entrenched in popular culture.

Following his success with Star Trek, he supplemented his income and showed continued support for his fans by making numerous public appearances. As a result of his portrayal of Scotty, Doohan inspired many fans to pursue careers in engineering and other technical fields.

Doohan developed a talent for accents as a child. Auditioning for the role of 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 replied “Well, if you want an engineer, he better be a Scotsman because, in my experience, all the world’s best engineers have been Scottish”. He chose the name “Montgomery Scott” after his grandfather.

In later years, Doohan reenacted 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, he exploited Doohan’s versatility by having him perform most of the guest male roles, including that of Robert April, which the show cited as the Enterprise’s first captain. Doohan was the alien navigator Lieutenant Arex, and provided seven different voices for another episode.

The Scott character was originally conceived as semi-regular; but along with fellow cast members Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), Doohan’s character was elevated in importance to leads alongside William Shatner’s Captain James T. Kirk. It was established that, owing to his high technical skills, 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 regulated 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 often strained the starship’s propulsion and/or defenses to their limits (“I cannae push it any faster, Captain!” or “I cannae guarantee that she’ll hold up!”). In this capacity, Scott proved his resourcefulness in demanding technical situations, often holding the Enterprise together with little more than a few spare parts and some Scottish stubbornness. In the end, many fans saw the Enterprise itself as the show’s star, leaving Scott in the enviable position of her defender. For example, in “The Trouble With Tribbles”, Scott stands idly by and even keeps Chekov from starting any trouble as a Klingon insults Kirk; however, Scott is finally provoked into violence when the Klingon insults the Enterprise herself.

Doohan was quoted as saying, “Scotty is ninety-nine percent James Doohan and one percent accent.” Using his considerable vocal skills, Doohan devised the Vulcan and Klingon language dialogue heard in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Later, professional linguists, particularly Marc Okrand, expanded Klingon into a fully constructed language with a working grammar. In addition to playing Scotty, Doohan also did many guest voices.

Although he continued to work with William Shatner in the Star Trek films, in private life Doohan didn’t get along well with Shatner and was once quoted as saying, “I like Captain Kirk, but I can’t say that I’m very fond of Bill.” As the only former Star Trek co-star, Doohan declined to be interviewed by Shatner for Shatner’s first Star Trek: Memories book about the show, nor did he consent to do so for Shatner’s follow-up book, Star Trek: Movie Memories, though Shatner mentioned in the latter that the icy relationship between the two started to thaw, when both men were working on Star Trek Generations in 1993-1994. At Doohan’s final August 2004 convention appearance, Doohan and Shatner appeared to have mended their relationship.

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