Jimmy Doohan died this morning at the age of 85. It’s hardly a shock — he’s been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and made his final public appearance slightly under a year ago — but it still hurts. My beloved Scotty has beamed off to whatever adventure awaits us all beyond this life, and another piece of my childhood is gone. I’m fighting back tears as I type this at an all-too-public computer.

Doohan’s signature role of Scotty — more formally known as Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer of the U.S.S. Enterprise — was always one of my favorite characters on the original Star Trek series. I liked all the characters on the show, of course, but he was right up there with Kirk and Bones for me. And it’s kind of difficult to explain why, given how poorly defined his character actually was. He was Scottish, he loved whiskey and his precious warp engines (his “wee bairns”), and he had an eye for the ladies (who didn’t, on the old Trek?). Beyond that, however, the viewer never really knew much about Mr. Scott. We learned more about his personal history during a single guest appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation than we did from three television seasons and six movies featuring the original crew.

Nevertheless, I think regular viewers of the show always had a strong impression of what kind of man Scotty was, and it’s only logical — to use a Trekian catchphrase — to credit Doohan for that. He’s not someone you’d think of when compiling a list of great actors, but his talent breathed real life into a underwritten cypher, and the fans loved him for it.

Scotty was the regular joe of the Enterprise crew, a mechanical genius perhaps, but still the closest thing to a blue-collar character we ever saw in the Star Trek universe, at least until Chief O’Brien, a very Scotty-like character, came along mid-way through The Next Gen‘s run. He was stubborn and exasperating and irritatingly obsessive about his damn engines, but he was also sympathetic and loyal to a fault and slyly funny. He was the sort of guy you wanted at your back when the chips were down, and he was the sort of guy you wanted to share a drink with after the crisis had passed. And he was a mechanic, like my dad, and maybe that was part of his appeal for me, too.

(He was not, however, the guy you wanted to take clubbing with you. Assuming you could tear him away from his tech manuals, his generally poor on-screen experiences with women suggest that you wouldn’t score with him as your wingman. No, if you’re cruising for chicks, Kirk’s your man…)

In later years, as Doohan’s weight rose and he grew a mustache, both he and Scotty took on the air of a kindly old uncle, or even a grandfather, and the fans loved him even more. He was a near-constant fixture on the convention circuit for decades, unlike the show’s big stars who only occasionally deigned to commune with the unwashed masses. Anne and I were lucky enough to meet him during an autograph session a few years ago; we found him to be a warm, pleasant man who genuinely appreciated the attention he was receiving for work that was far behind him at that point. He was no angel — he smelled of scotch, and Anne is convinced that he scoped her out as he signed her photo, the old lecher — but he was, like Scotty, lovable. You instinctively knew he was just plain decent.

For the record, I think Doohan’s best moment as an actor, without a doubt, came in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, in a sequence that was butchered for the theatrical release but has since been restored for the Director’s Edition DVD. A young crewman on his very first mission, Scotty’s nephew, is killed during Kahn’s initial attack on the Enterprise. Upon hearing the usual, “he’s dead,” from Dr. McCoy, Scotty gives the highest praise of which he is capable: “He stayed at his post. When the other trainees ran.”

Doohan’s voice cracks during the line reading and we can imagine he’s remembering friends he lost during World War II (he was in the Canadian Army, part of the force that landed at Normandy on D-Day). It is a heart-breaking moment, more powerful in its way than the big death scene that comes later on in that picture, and probably the only time in the Star Trek franchise’s long run that we really care about the death of a lowly “redshirt.” And it’s all because Doohan sells it. Like the whole Scotty character, the scenario is little more than a sketch, a cliche even, but the actor sells it. And this fan loved him for it.

Best speed for home, Jimmy.