First of all, I want to apologize for not ranting yesterday.  I had an idea of what I wanted to go on about, but the morning got away from me and I just never got around to it.  As it happens, next Monday, the last day of February, is probably a better day for it anyway.

Meanwhile, today I thought I would talk about a war hero.  Back in World War II, a young Canadian lieutenant in command of a few troops hit Juno Beach in Normandy on D-Day.  It was his first combat duty.  He shot a couple of snipers, led his men through a mine field, and then took up a defensive position for a little while.  Later on, they moved, passing between a couple of command posts.  This hero was shot six times, including once in the chest, and he survived.  That wasn’t enough to kill him.  In fact, he later became a pilot and was labeled the “craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force.”  He wasn’t actually in the Canadian Air Force, although he was a military pilot.  One stunt he pulled–which his superiors reprimanded him for–was to fly a plane back and forth between mountainside telegraph poles.

After he left the military, this hero pursued acting.  He was in four-thousand radio programs and four-hundred television show.  He eventually gained fame for exactly one role he played in the late sixties:  Montgomery Scott of the U.S.S. Enterprise.  That’s right, I am talking about Scotty of Star Trek fame.  All of the above is true; you can see it for yourself in his Wikipedia entry.

But there’s more!  His acting ability was quite versatile.  And from a purely macho point of view, he was a manly man:  At age fifty-four, he met and fell in love with a seventeen-year-old girl.  Not only did she not file a restraining order, but she married him shortly after they met.  The two had three children, the last of them when Mr. Doohan was eighty.  How much more of a manly man can you be?  War hero, famous actor, and a father at eighty with a wife thirty-seven years younger.  (They were married for thirty-one years until his death, by the way.)

So why am I telling all this?  Many of the above facts are not well known about James Doohan.  I didn’t know them until I stumbled across the war hero bit on a website yesterday.  I found it a little odd, so I went to Wiki to check out the facts and learned more about him.  I am a Trek fan, have been for a long time, but I didn’t know much of what I read about in the article.  I vaguely remembered hearing about him missing a finger, but didn’t know it was a war wound.  I knew he was good with voices, but didn’t know how good until I read the article.

The point I am making is it’s easy to not know somebody you thought you knew.  James Doohan was more of a Kirk in real life than William Shatner was, but I can’t imagine them switching the roles they defined so well.  I also read articles yesterday about Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony and Majel Barrett.  These are people I knew something about because I liked the work they did, but there was a great deal I did not know.

I sometimes wonder about famous actors’ lives.  There’s plenty of stereotypes for their lifestyle, of course, but I am confident they are quite wrong in many case.  Take Bill Murray, for example.  Famous comedian extraordinaire, and what does he do with his free time?  He has lately gotten a reputation for showing up uninvited at random people’s karaoke parties.  Natalie Portman, best known as Queen / Senator Amidala of Star Wars fame, is attending Harvard in hopes of leaving acting (mostly) to become a psychologist.  (Can you imagine being a Star Wars fan and becoming one of her patients?)

People are people.  That’s really what it boils down to.  The examples above show why stereotypes don’t work and why it’s best to not reach any conclusions about somebody without getting to know them.  I feel I know a little more about James Doohan now, but what I have learned only makes me wonder what it would have been like to know him personally.  I mourn his loss even more than when he died.  I would love to meet Mr. Murray or Ms. Portman or any of several other intriguing actors, but it’s not likely to happen.  I don’t move in their circles, I don’t have karaoke parties, and although a case can be made for me needing psychological help, I am doubting I would be able to afford the cost of Natalie’s services when she begins her practice.

On the other hand, you never know.

See you tomorrow.