yeah thats like seeing Shatner ham it up on Twilight Zone before he went where no man has gone before and became a big star! all those folks had jobs before ST. i have only seen Nimoy and Kelly on other stuff though.
Guess they all were are lucky (main cast not the guest stars like Montalban, who were already stars) Roddenberry came along.
I think all of the Star Trek leads were doing this (acting) prior.
Here’s what Scotty (Doohan) was up to:
In 1946, he had several roles for
CBCradio,<a href="
James Doohan - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>16<span>]</span></a> starting January 12. For several years, he shuttled between Toronto and New York as work demanded. He made his TV debut as a detective on the show
Martin Kane, Private Eye, and appeared in 54 episodes. He estimated he performed in over 4,000 radio programs and 450 television programs during this period,<a href="
James Doohan - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>17<span>]</span></a>and earned a reputation for versatility.<a href="
James Doohan - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>18<span>]</span></a>
In the mid-1950s, he appeared as forest ranger Timber Tom (the northern counterpart of Buffalo Bob) in the Canadian version of
Howdy Doody. Coincidentally, fellow
Star Trek cast member
William Shatner appeared simultaneously as Ranger Bill in the American version. Doohan and Shatner both appeared in the 1950s Canadian science fiction series
Space Command.<a href="
James Doohan - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>16<span>]</span></a>Doohan also appeared in several episodes of
Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicansin 1957–58.
For
GM Presents, he played the lead role in the
CBC Television drama
Flight into Danger (1956) by
Arthur Hailey, then in
The Night they Killed Joe Howe (1960).<a href="
James Doohan - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>19<span>]</span></a>(
Arthur Hailey rewrote the former into the novel
Runway Zero-Eight, then adapted to
Terror in the Sky. This story was later satirized in
Airplane!.)
Doohan's credits included
The Twilight Zone (Season 4, Episode 3 "Valley of the Shadow" - 17 January 1961),
GE True,
Hazel ("Hazel's Highland Fling" as Gordon "Gordy" MacHeath).
The Outer Limits,
The Fugitive,
Bewitched,
Fantasy Island,
Magnum, P.I.,
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.(Season 1, Episode 4 "The Shark Affair" - 1964 - and Season 2, Episode 20 "The Bridge of Lions Affair, Part 1" - 1966), and
Bonanza. In the
Bonanza episode "Gift of Water" (1962), he co-starred with actress
Majel Barrett who would later play
Star Trek's Nurse
Christine Chapel. He played an assistant to the United States president in two episodes of
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He had an uncredited role in
The Satan Bug (1965), appeared in the
Daniel Boone episode "A Perilous Passage" (1970), appeared as a state trooper in
Roger Vadim's film
Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971, which was produced by
Star Trek creator
Gene Roddenberry), and played opposite Richard Harris in the movie
Man in the Wilderness (1971).<a href="
James Doohan - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>17<span>]</span></a>
Doohan also acted on stage, including
Every Bed Is Narrow(1956)
Bright Sun at Midnight(1957) and
King Lear(1960) on the
Crest Theatre in Toronto.