James Doohan to be sent to his final frontier
James Doohan as Montgomery Scott guest-starring on an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." RELATED YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS James Doohan Star Trek Gene Roddenberry William Shatner or or Create Your Own
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- He made his name in Hollywood beaming his colleagues back to the safety of the Enterprise on "Star Trek." Now, actor James Doohan's family is hoping to beam him up to the "final frontier" that Doohan's character "Scotty" loved so dearly.
The actor, who died Wednesday at age 85, 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.
Doohan died at his home in Redmond, Wash., with his wife of 31 years, Wende, at his side. He had retired from public events last year, not long after announcing he had Alzheimer's disease.
Houston-based Space Services Inc., which specializes in space memorials, plans to send a few grams of Doohan's ashes aboard a rocket later this year. The remains, which will be sealed in an aluminum capsule, will eventually burn up when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.
It should be a fitting finale for an actor who, as the Starship Enterprise's frazzled chief engineer saved the Enterprise almost every week from blowing up, burning up or being overrun by renegade aliens when the warp drive, the phasers, the shields, the power cells or some other futuristic collection of doohickies failed.
As the man who commanded the Enterprise's particle beam transporter, Doohan's character also inspired the phrase, "Beam me up, Scotty." Capt. Kirk and other members of the Enterprise crew never really issued the order quite that way, however, until the fourth "Star Trek" film when Kirk said, "Scotty, beam me up."
A master of dialects from his early years in radio, the Canadian-born Doohan experimented with seven different accents for the hard-pressed engineer.
"The producers asked me which one I preferred," Doohan recalled 30 years later. "I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, 'If this character is going to be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman."'
Doohan was born March 3, 1920, in Vancouver, British Columbia, the youngest of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, and his wife, Sarah. He wrote in his autobiography, "Beam Me Up, Scotty," that his father was a drunk who made life miserable for his wife and children.
At 19, he escaped the turmoil at home by joining the Canadian army, where he became a lieutenant in the artillery and was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day.
After the war, Doohan enrolled in a drama class in Toronto on a whim. He showed promise and won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone.
His commanding presence and booming voice brought him steady work as a character actor in films and television in Canada and the United States. Then came "Star Trek" and fans forever screaming "Beam me up, Scotty."
"Good gracious, it's been said to me for just about 31 years," he said in an 1998 interview. "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."
Married three times, Doohan was the father of nine children.
"A long and storied career is over," William Shatner, who played Kirk, said Wednesday.
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.