[Morgeruat]

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/vie...icle/6527.html

We are extremely lucky to have this opportunity to celebrate the man who is Jimmy Doohan. What a survivor he is. He survived D-Day in World War II; he survived various travails in this personal life, and many ups and downs in his career including typecasting from Star Trek; he survived a heart attack in the 1980s and a severe bout with pneumonia just a few months ago. Recently it was widely reported that Doohan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, the same affliction that claimed the life of Ronald Reagan earlier this year. The Alzheimer's is only in its early stages, but he has also been suffering from Parkinson's disease, diabetes and lung fibrosis. He's a stubborn lad, though, and he'll be damned if he'll give in easily. When he heard the news reports about himself last month, he remarked to Wende, "If I had Alzheimer's, I think I'd remember." His health is increasingly fragile and he's not nearly as able to respond to people like he could not long ago, but he still adores his family, friends and fans as much as they adore him. . . . Lots of people assume Jimmy Doohan is Scottish, but he's only got a small amount of Scottish blood in him — he's actually more Irish. He was conceived in Ireland, but his parents decided to get out of Belfast because conditions for Catholics there were deteriorating. They picked Canada, landed in Halifax on New Year's Day in 1920, and took a train 5,400 miles to British Columbia. James was born March 3, 1920, in Vancouver. The family (Jimmy was the youngest of four) eventually relocated to Sarnia, Ontario, where Jimmy endured a difficult childhood with a father who failed to leave his drinking behind in the old country. It was largely for that reason that Jimmy "escaped" from his life by signing up for the Royal Canadian Artillery, once the country joined the war effort in 1939. Posted in England, he served throughout the duration of the war, becoming an officer and rising through the ranks, but without seeing actual combat until June 6, 1944 — D-Day — where he led a regiment of 33 men onto Juno Beach at Normandy, France. You may have never noticed, watching the Original Series and the movies, that Mr. Scott has a physical handicap — he's missing the middle finger of his right hand. That's because the actor kept it very well hidden. (Watch the shows again carefully — Scotty is almost always clenching his right hand, or hiding it behind a console — but if you know to look, the missing digit is occasionally apparent.) That injury occurred on D-Day. Lt. Doohan successfully led his Canadian troop onto the beach and pushed inland to establish the best possible gun position (along the way Doohan shot two German snipers, never knowing whether he killed them). A field was secured and command posts were established, but not all Germans between the beach and their position had been captured. That night about 11:30, Doohan and another officer were walking between command posts when machine gun fire broke out. Doohan was hit; he fell into a shell hole, looked at his hand and saw blood. Three bullets struck the one finger. Never losing consciousness, he actually walked to the regimental aid post, unaware he also took four bullets in the leg. There was an eighth bullet, and it was nothing less than a miracle that he's still with us today. It hit his chest, four inches from his heart. But it ricocheted off the sterling silver cigarette case in his pocket, the one his brother had given him for being best man at his wedding. It's like a trite plot twist, he acknowledges — his brother saved his life from thousands of miles away. Jimmy pushed the dent out of the cigarette case and continued using it until he quit smoking years later. He stayed in the military, learned to fly and came to be known as the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces." . . . Though Doohan roundly criticized [Gene] Roddenberry for leaving the show [Star Trek] to implode in the third season, Jimmy and Gene became very close friends, trading war and aviation stories and sharing a number of sailing adventures. In 1970 Jimmy actually started dating Gene's secretary, Anita, and they got married. Gene was dating Majel Barrett at the time, and the two couples did almost everything together. Majel was at Jimmy and Anita's house when Gene called from Japan and asked her to come out there and marry him. But things started getting tough for Jimmy in those post-Star Trek years — he found himself typecast as "Scotty" and the jobs were not forthcoming, plus his marriage with Anita collapsed after a couple of years. But then he started to realize that Star Trek could continue earning him a living. Because of his notoriety from that show, he began speaking engagements at colleges around the country ... and then there was the convention phenomenon. It started around 1972, when Star Trek really found its audience in syndication. Jimmy and his castmates were overwhelmed by the adulation and fascination being heaped upon them by crowds of thousands. And then in 1974 he found his one true thing that made his personal life complete, finally. While doing a play in San Francisco, he was met by two young ladies who came backstage to get autographs. Julie brought Wende to the play as a gift, because Wende was a big fan of Scotty's. Jimmy couldn't keep his eyes off Wende. He invited her to come see the play again, and they went on a date. On their second date, he proposed. A few months later, she accepted. On October 12 of this year, Jimmy and Wende will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. (By the way, Jimmy's best man was William Campbell, known to fans as "Koloth" and "Trelane.")