TV LEGEND 'SCOTTY' DIES
The ashes of Star Trek's James Doohan will be sent into space in accordance with his wishes, his agent has said.
The 85-year-old actor who played Scotty in the original TV series died at his home in Redmond, Washington on Wednesday.
The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, agent Steve Stevens said.
Doohan, who played the Starship Enterprise's chief engineer, helped make the catchphrase "Beam me up Scotty" one of the most famous in TV history.
Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966.
A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.
"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.'"
The series, which starred William Shatner as Captain James T Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr Spock, became legendary among science fiction fans.
When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself typecast as the Enterprise's Montgomery Scott, and went on to star in five feature length Star Trek movies.
The ashes of Star Trek's James Doohan will be sent into space in accordance with his wishes, his agent has said.
The 85-year-old actor who played Scotty in the original TV series died at his home in Redmond, Washington on Wednesday.
The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, agent Steve Stevens said.
Doohan, who played the Starship Enterprise's chief engineer, helped make the catchphrase "Beam me up Scotty" one of the most famous in TV history.
Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966.
A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.
"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.'"
The series, which starred William Shatner as Captain James T Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr Spock, became legendary among science fiction fans.
When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself typecast as the Enterprise's Montgomery Scott, and went on to star in five feature length Star Trek movies.
