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Star Trek's Scotty Dies at 85
darkworm writes "James Doohan, better known to Trekkies everywhere as Scotty, has died at the age of 85. James was suffering from both Parkinsons and Alzheimer's and died earlier today at his home"
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There's a mirror here and a better obit from CNN here.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
"Beam me up, Scotty!"
"He's dead, Jim."
Ok, now that that's out of the way, I'm sure the rest of the slashdot article comments will be thoughtful, insightful commentary on Doohan's passing.
Such as:
He lost a finger during the D-Day invasion as a captain in the Royal Canadian Artillery.
He was also a linguist, and devised the Vulcan and Klingon lanuages for the original Star Trek motion picture.
He had his youngest daughter in 2000, when he was 80 (!), with his wife Wende, whom he'd been married to since 1975. Way to go, James.
More
I loved the scene in the documentary Trekkies where Doohan talks befriending a suicidal fan.
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I found this link which gave more info about that part of the documentary.
http://www.treknation.com/interviews/roger_nygard
Q: Trekkies like to hear anecdotes. Tell us of some funny incident during the production of the movie.
A: Right in the middle of the most emotional moment of our interview with James Doohan the camera ran out of film, interrupting Mr. Doohan in the middle of his story about a suicide note he had received from a fan. He couldn't wait until the camera was reloaded because he was already late to be on stage. The convention security people said there would not be time for a second interview so it seemed like we would never find out what happened to the suicidal woman. We were determined to find out so we waited four hours until after Mr. Doohan spoke on stage and then signed several hundred autographs and then Denise asked him if he could kindly come back to finish his story. Despite being exhausted from the day's convention events, he graciously agreed, and he told us the rest of the story, which became the most touching moment in the film. I can't believe we almost didn't get that story.
Mostly by his 5 year old son I should think.
Sarah Doohan is a girl.
The mind boggles - how much of an asshole do you have to be to have children at that age?
These things are not always planned. It's easy to call other people assholes when you can imagine whatever circumstances you like to support your judgement. Jackass.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
There is a post on his website - http://www.wilwheaton.net/
...no two people are not on fire.
This is one of the best writeups I've seen on him.
RTEFA. (E = Entire)
The last two paragraphs:
In a 1998 interview, Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing the line "Beam me up, Scotty" -- a line that, reportedly, was never actually spoken on the TV show.
"I'm not tired of it at all," he replied. "Good gracious, it's been said to me for just about 31 years. It's been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway. I hear it from just about everybody. It's been fun."
We have a province called "Nova Scotia" -- New Scotland. A large number of immigrants to Canada in the 18th century were Scots and it permeates many aspects of Canadian culture. Look at our early Prime Ministers... "MacDonald", "MacKenzie", etc.
Sir Sanford Flemming -- world famous Scottish engineer, Scottish descent. Probably the inspiration for Scotty given Doohan's Canadian origins.
Mike Meyers is known to do a scottish accent or two...
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Here's the lines from the TNG episode "Relics":
Scotty: "Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want."
LaForge: "Yeah, well, I told the captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour."
Scotty: "How long will it really take?"
LaForge: "An hour."
Scotty: "You didn't tell him now long it would really take, did you?"
LaForge: "Of course I did."
Scotty: "Laddie, you got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker!"
And those words are one of the guiding principles in everything I do professionally. I always undersell and overexecute. RIP good man, RIP.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Doohan really gave so much back to the community.
Doohan's contributions were great, but he wasn't the only one. I can't summarize George Takei's vast undertakings, but his involvement with the Japanese-American National Museum and Independent Task Force on Television Measurement are notable.
George Takei attended James Doohan's last convention and the reception of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and his retelling is an moving account.