The fellow above is one James Doohan born this day 1920 in Vancouver, Canada. Born the youngest of four children, young James' father reported invented a form of high octane gasoline in 1923, but was apparently a raging alcoholic that tormented the family. He served in the Royal Canadian Artillery during World War II, and participated in the Allies invasion of Normandy, where he was wounded in three places. After the war, he began working in radio, but privately studied Shakespeare in order to get into a more challenging field. After appearances on several well known TV shows, he auditioned for the role of chief engineer in the TV series Star Trek. At his audition he tried out several different asked, and when he was asked which he preferred he replied "well if you want an engineer, he better be a Scotsman because, in my experience, the best engineers have been Scottish." To this day, there are many Star Trek fans that did not realize that Doohan was not Scottish, and did not speak in a Scottish accent all the time. He used those considerable vocal skills to help develop the Vulcan and Klingon language used in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." He revised his role in seven further Star Trek films, but was basically trapped in the character of Scotty. It appears that even working together for so long, he and William Shatner were not particularly fond of each other. However, it was for that role as chief engineer Scotty, that "gave her all she's got Captain" that James Doohan (March 3rd, 1920- July 20th 2005, at the age of 85), you are my (189th) hero of the day.
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