Whoa! Apparently he was missing that finger his entire acting career, every single time he played Scotty!
He put in a good work hiding it, some times even comically so when you know. but it's visible in a few scenes later on
Gary Burghoff who played Radar O'Reilly in M.A.S.H has a deformed hand that is mostly hidden throughout that series.
Lost his finger as a Canadian officer leading soldiers during the D-Day landings in 1944 .... not as dramatic as you would think, he was shot at by his own soldiers who mistook him for the enemy. Still ... what a story ... I do a lot of research on veterans in my family and every time I watch TOS with Scotty, it amazes me that he lived through all that and still became an actor for an amazing show years later.
When you read the histories of many actors that were part of the TOS show over the years, many of them were war veterans, soldiers, sailors, merchant marines that either were part of the war effort or actually saw combat in the war which was still 20 years behind them.
https://www.junobeach.org/canada-in-wwii/articles/james-doohan/
The bullet deflecting off a cigarette case instead of going through his chest is pretty amazing to me!
WORD. Arthur C Clarke, RAH, Asimov, tons of of the people who 'made' sci-fi served and it shows in their work.
the bullet to his chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case given to him by his brother
A rare case of smoking and/or peer pressure saving a life! 😄
('cept I'm too lazy to change "Life" to "Scotty" - so just imagine it, m'kay?:-P)
Did he cut it off while making Transparent aluminum?
Sorry for the serious answer.
He lost it during the D-Day invasion in France during World War II. He was on Juno Beach as he was in the Canadian army. If I recall correctly he was shot 6 times, but survived. One very tough man.
I got to meet him back in the eighties, when I was a teenager. He was a truly wonderful person and his death in 2005 made the world a lesser place.
Four rounds hit his leg, one passed through his right middle finger and one hit him in the chest, deflecting off the lucky cigarette case given to him by his brother
Shot 6 times by friendly fire no less!
I can definitely attest they he survived; he was in Star Trek, a series filmed after D-Day.
No wonder he didn't want to use the keyboard.
Just another reason to hate that shattering window in Generations. Disrespecting his sacrifice.
"Captain, it's impossible to go to warp! The only way to restore warp power is to shut down the main reactor, and rebuild the entire matter-antimatter injector system from scratch using a team of 20 engineers. But because the Klingons are closing in on us, I'll have it done for you in five minutes."
"Live long and... Live long... and- gimme a sec." RRRRIIIIIIPPP "Live long and prosper."
If he would… care to study some technical manuals…
