July 20, 2005

Beamed up one last time

James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) at his Redmond, Washington, home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

[Full Story]

That's too bad. Scotty, at least in the original series, was always my favourite character. Sadly, this was inevitable, as Doohan was only a few months younger than the late DeForest Kelley, who died in 1999.

Nerd alert: A nitpick with CNN's reportage: No one ever said "Beam me up, Scotty" on the original series. Mr. Scott responded to that command precisely once, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in 1986.

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