James Montgomery Doohan, Star Trek's Scotty, has died at his Redmond, Washington home at the age of 85. His wife of 28 years, Wende, was at his side. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease.

Doohan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the youngest of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, and his wife Sarah. He left home at 19 to join the Canadian Forces and fought with the Allies in World War II. He went on to become a captain in the Royal Canadian Artillery and led troops into battle on D-Day. Doohan was injured during that battle. He took six hits from a machine gun that night: one that took off his middle right finger (something that he managed to hide on screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. Miraculously, the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.

Doohan enrolled in a drama class in Toronto, Ontario after the war. His talent was apparent, winning him a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen and Tony Randall. His commanding voice and presence made him popular choice as a character actor for both film and television in Canada and the US. He had in fact, been enjoying a busy career when he decided to audition for the role of the engineer in NBC's new space adventure in 1966. Doohan was a master of many dialects, so he tried seven different accents. When asked by the producers which one he preferred, he replied: "If this character is going to be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman."

Besides his renowned role as chief engineer, Montgomery Scott, aboard the "Enterprise" in the original Star Trek series, Doohan had parts in more than 100 motion pictures and television series, including The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Fantasy Island, Loaded Weapon 1 and Double Trouble.Despite its short three-year run, Star Trek has continued in syndication both in the United States and abroad, and its following growing larger. In his later years, Doohan attended 40 Trekkie gatherings around the country and lectured at numerous colleges.

The success of George Lucas' Star Wars in 1977 prompted Paramount Pictures (Star Trek's television producers), to plan a movie based on the series. They reunited the TV cast and hired director Robert Wise and the results are history.Star Trek: The Motion Picture's huge success resulted in five sequels with the cast of the original TV show.

Doohan was married three times, with his first two marriages to Judy Doohan and Anita Yagel, ending in divorce. In total, he had nine children, four from his first marriage, two from his second and his third marriage to Wende Braunberger, in 1974, produced three children.

During an interview in 1998, Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing the line "Beam me up, Scotty" -- a line that, reportedly, was never actually spoken on the TV show. He replied: "I'm not tired of it at all. I hear it from just about everybody. It's been fun."