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Jimmy's weight gain was an effect of his quitting smoking in the 1980's.
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Attended S.C.I.T.S. high school in Sarnia.
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Jimmy was married 3 times. First to Janet Young from 1949 to 1964 then to Anita Yagel in 1967 until 1972 and then to Wende Doohan in 1974 until is death in 2005.
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Jimmy was 5'8" tall.
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In his will, Jimmy requested that some of his ashes be sent into space. That happened on April 28, 2007. The rest of his ashes were scattered over Puget Sound in Washington.
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Jimmy and his wife Wendy have three children: Eric, Thomas and Sarah. Sarah is the youngest of the three and was born in 2000 to an 80 year old Jimmy.
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A cocktail known as the "Beam me up, Scotty" (Jim Beam, 7-Up and Glenlivit single malt scotch) is named in honor of James Doohan's character.
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Jimmy death occurred on the 36th anniversary (July 20th) of one of the greatest engineering achievements in history, the Apollo 11 moon landing.
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Jimmy and S. M. Stirling authored, The Flight Engineer, a three part science fiction novel series. The novels in the series are The Rising(1996), The Privateer(1999) and The Independent Command(2000).
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His grandson, Kyle, was born in 1987. He is the son of Doohan's second daughter, Deirdre.
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His nickname with his friends was "Jimmy"
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He had appeared in more than 100 motion pictures and television series.
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In 1987, Jimmy was nominated for the Saturn Award for "Best Supporting Actor" for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).
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He narrated a number of audio adaptions of
Star Trek novels, including
Yesterday's Son.
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He appeared in a number of television commercials in the 1990s, including Ames Department Stores, Radio Shack and Cheerios breakfast cereal.
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His autobiography, Beam Me Up, Scotty was released in 1996.
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He was the only member of the original
Star Trek cast not to lend his voice to the
Futurama episode
Where No Fan Has Gone Before. This led to the character of "Scotty" being replaced by the farcical "Welshie". According to Futurama's producers, Doohan's only response to their request that he appear on the show was a simple "no way."
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During Jimmy's early stage work, he demonstrated a remarkable gift for foreign accents. He tried several during his audition for
Star Trek (1966), and
Gene Roddenberry was immediately taken by his Scottish brogue. After being cast as the as-yet unnamed ship's engineer, the two men improvised the name "Montgomery Scott" ('Scott' for the accent, and 'Montgomery' for Doohan's middle name).
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According to the Director's Edition DVD of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), the Klingon language first introduced in that movie and later featured in many later Trek movies and TV episodes was initially devised by Doohan. His original sounds were later expanded upon and refined by others, ultimately resulting in Shakespeare plays and The Bible being translated into Klingon years later. Ironically, his character, Scotty, complains of difficulty reading Klingon at the start of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).
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Due to his missing middle finger, James' right hand was rarely in shot on "
Star Trek" without it being clenched in a fist. The only two episodes in which the audience can see that his middle finger is missing are "
The Trouble with Tribbles" and "
Catspaw". In
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), his hand can be seen when Scotty is handing McCoy the parts from the Trans-Warp Drive, as well as in
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) when Scotty is holding the dinner given to him by Uhura while he was working on the repairing the systems on the bridge.
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Jimmy was among many WWII veterans to publically thank
Steven Spielberg for not holding back on the intensity of the Normandy Invasion scene in
Saving Private Ryan (1998).
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Jimmy used to live across the street from Ralph Thorson and his family, the main subjects of the movie
The Hunter (1980) and the television series
The Huntress (2000).
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Jimmy was given an honorary Degree in Engineering by the Milwaukee School of Engineering where apparently half of the students polled said they were inspired to study engineering by his role in
Star Trek (1966).
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Jimmy toured the United States as the Spokesman for Philips Electronics HDTV in 1999.
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James was able to affect several different accents.
Gene Roddenberry asked which he preferred, and Doohan reportedly replied "If you're going to have an engineer, you'd better make him Scottish."
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Early in his acting career, James starred in the Canadian version of the Howdy Doody Show.
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Whenever the character of "Scotty" was seen operating the transporter controls and the camera zoomed in on his hands, hand models were used for the shots since James was missing his right middle finger.