James Doohan as "Montgomery" Scott
He dealt, on a seemingly weekly basis, with the ship's overloaded reactors and damaged warp drives.
His plaintive, if somewhat unauthentic, Scottish cry - "I dannae if she can take any more, Captain!" - rang through the outer edges of the cosmos as Captain James T Kirk urged even more power out of the craft.
For millions of TV viewers worldwide, this low budget science fiction show was the highlight of the week and Scotty one of its best-loved characters.
Cult status
Even though the original series ran for only three years, subsequent repeats and a series of highly-successful spin-offs and feature movies brought Star Trek huge cult status.
Doohan saw action on D-Day
It made the man behind Scotty, actor James Doohan, into one of the entertainment world's most familiar faces.
James Montgomery Doohan (he shared a name with his most famous character) was not, in fact, a Scot but a Canadian.
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1920, his early life, like that of his contemporaries, was dominated by World War II.
Wartime exploits
Doohan's wartime experiences were every bit as hair-raising as his fictional fights with the Klingons.
As a captain in the Royal Canadian Artillery Regiment, he lost a finger on the first morning of the D-Day landings in Normandy.
To boldly go where no man has gone before
The Enterprise's mission
He then saw a tank, which was carrying his substantial winnings from a cross-Channel card school, blown to pieces before his eyes.
Besides this, his aerobatic exploits, which included nearly crashing his aircraft in Holland while taking "a look" at a German U-boat, earned him the title of "the craziest pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force".
After the war, Doohan spent two years studying acting at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse, where he later taught.
Strong character
Returning to Canada in 1953, he worked in 4,000 radio programmes and 400 television shows before moving to Hollywood.
There he enjoyed small parts in TV shows such as Peyton Place, The Virginian and The Twilight Zone.
Capricious spacecraft: The USS Enterprise
Working alongside fellow Canadian William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, he benefited from the strong characterisation which offset the show's small budget.
Avuncular and wise, Scotty appeared a loyal and steadfast officer.
His ability to conjure solutions to the Enterprise's regular engineering crises often made him the saviour of his beloved ship.
Trekkies' favourite
The series lasted two years fewer than the Enterprise's "five-year mission...to boldly go where no man has gone before".
Beam me up, Scotty!
Kirk's way out in times of need
But the continuing interest created by constant repeats led, in 1979, to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a worldwide box-office hit and the first of seven Star Trek movies.
Though his other work made little impact, Doohan enjoyed a lucrative old age as the star of many Star Trek conventions.
The programme's fans, or Trekkies as they are known, found him an approachable and affable figure who often entertained the crowds with his singing.
Inspiring engineer
Star Trek's impact became apparent when he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, after half the students there said that Scotty had inspired them to take up the subject.
Kirk and his crew face more peril
Paradoxically, the catchphrase for which Doohan will be best remembered was said to, and not by, him.
Adopted now as a throw-away line in any desperate situation, "Beam me up, Scotty!" has become a part of the linguistic currency.
In the same way, James Doohan's most famous creation is, and will remain, one of TV's favourite characters.
Doohan 1997
James Montgomery Doohan, the Canadian actor best known for playing the role of ''Star Trek'''s "Scotty" the engineer died Wednesday of pneumonia after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 85 years old.

Now, Doohan's family is hoping to beam him up to the "Final Frontier" that Scotty loved so dearly. The actor had told relatives he wanted his ashes blasted into outer space, as was done for "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. "He'll be there with his buddy, which is wonderful," said Doohan's agent and longtime friend, Steve Stevens.

At the time of his death, he was living in Redmond, Washington in the United States with his wife and their three young children. 

Doohan was born in Vancouver and participated in World War II as a captain in the Royal Canadian Artillery. He lost the middle finger of his right hand at the Invasion of Juno Beach on D-Day, a bloody scene immortalized in the 1998 Steven Spielberg film ''Saving Private Ryan''. Doohan was among the film's greatest supporters, thanking the director for not sanitizing the gore of the actual event.

Doohan as ''Star Trek'' character "Scotty" in an autographed photo of him in one of the Star Trek movies. ''Source: Wikipedia''
He started his acting career with a radio appearance at a CBC show and went on to act in several character roles. Doohan had already made a name for himself in the entertainment business as a featured voice actor in Canadian and U.S. radio dramas and motion picture voice-overs due to his knack for picking up linguistically perfect accents. His ability to affect a near-perfect Scottish accent made him a natural for the role of Scotty, according to producers at the time.

When he auditioned for what would become the role of his life in 1966, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry asked him which of the different accents Doohan mastered would best suit the role of Scotty. Doohan respond that he believed "all the world's best engineers have been Scottish". After the original Star Trek series had ended, Doohan found himself typecast and had difficulties getting other roles.

Doohan suffered from Parkinson's as well as Alzheimer's disease. In August last year he received a star on Hollywood's Walk of fame.

After DeForest Kelley, Doohan is the second actor of the original Star Trek cast to die.

He is survived by his wife Wende, with whom he had been married since 1975, and seven children.