Luke Halpin - At five years old, he was already the breadwinner of his family. Now he is grown up and kisses (here with Hilarie Thompson). [NOTE: Luke was 8 when he appeared in Miracle at Potter's Farm, his debut]

"Without Flipper I would be dead".

Then he gave me a rose and finally he brought his guitar and played a few short, sweet songs, which he had composed himself.

If I didn't know it was Luke, I would not have recognized him. I brought him an adventure book as a present, and now I stood in front of the man who was much taller than me. I thought about the young Sandy who was on TV every Sunday around two, with Flipper, the great dolphin and his handsome young father.

But Luke Halpin, the more reasonable brother of the wild Bud, is 21 years old today and he has gotten out of his child shoes (German phrase). I meet a naive young guy at the start off his "adult" film career, tanned and very charming, not a teenager and not a man yet who likes to flirt, without worries and full of thought - he is everything but not a boy anymore.

"I think it is quite sad," the young man says, and he combs his blond hair with his hand. "The years with Flipper were my best time. It was like a being on vacation forever. The sea, the sun, our boat and Flipper, the best partner you can have!"

The Flipper years, from 1961 to 1965 with more than 102 movies [NOTE: 88 episodes were filmed 1964-1966], are still in his blood. He plays with his ring, on which a dolphin is carved in and he shows me his armband. "From Flipper, for Luke" it reads on the golden chain. "I would leave any woman for Flipper," Luke Halpin remembers. "What we had together was even better than what you watched on your TV screen. Whenever we were separated, I was sick - and Flipper too." It was not only one dolphin - it was five Flippers who were Luke's partners. "The caretakers wanted to avoid that the dolphins would become to close to me," Luke explains."We lived together for months. It was easy for both of us to get used to each other, and saying goodbye was always very painful".

Sept 8, 1968, Rome: Luke Halpin with Ingrid Gallmeister (Bild am Sonntag)

Jealousy

Luke has learned that dolphins need to be treated even more carefully than humans. As long as he was alone or with his film brother Tommy Norden (17), everything was fine. But one time Luke brought a girl with him. Luke laughs when he tells that Flipper started to act like a jealous diva. "At first, he ignored me. Then he started to splash water at the girl, to spit at her and to jump around. The girl ran away crying and I never saw her again".

"Dolphins can laugh and cry; they are sometimes sweet or jealous, and they are more reliable than humans," Luke says.

"Their mood swings, and they can be quite egoistic - it happened quite often that we had to start to shoot at some other time since the dolphin did not like something. There was something smelling, a tree was there or whatever. He refused to act until the team went to another location".

Luke whistles: "This is how we called Flipper. Not like with an instrument [the car horn] like in this idiotic movie. With the instruments, the dolphins never came out of the water. We never worked with tricks. We never needed that," Luke says and he is very proud.

Dolphins get their act together very fast and shooting with them is fun. And Flipper saved lives not only in the movie script. Tommy and Luke found on old car wreck on the bottom of the ocean. That was their place where no cameras were allowed. Luke has glancing eyes and when he talks you might think he talks of a former lover and not an animal. His voice is now soft. "We played around there with Flipper like father, mother and child, cops and robbers or doctor and patient. Whenever sharks came close, Flipper started to hit me with his fins and we knew. Danger! He was always behind us when we swam away to protect us until were in safety". One time the boys did not pay attention to Flipper's warning. They stayed at the car, they were curious to see the sharks. Luke: "We did not think about the danger. We were stupid kids out to experience something. Flipper started to dance around. He was furious and continued to dance around. We saw the shadow of the shark and Flipper went right after him like a robber. We do not know what happened next". Luke is somehow ashamed. "We just left. We do not think there was a fight since Flipper did not get hurt. But he scared the shark away. Otherwise we would not be here today". After this incident Tommy and Luke always paid attention to the signs of the shark. Flipper refused to go back to the car wreck. And the boys did not go back either.

Luke is still in contact with Tommy Norden and his film father Brian Kelly. Once a year they meet in Florida and have a reunion with Flipper.

But Luke did not only experience the carefree Flipper years but also other times. Already at the age of five years he was in front of the camera. His father could not work due to an accident and Luke was the breadwinner in the Halpin family. He secured their existence with a motel in California on the beach. He made his first movie at the age of 13 years, his first Flipper movie and lived four years in Florida while the movie [TV series] was shot. He misses the time with Flipper. [NOTE: Luke said he was 15 in the first Flipper movie in 16 Magazine]

"My entire childhood was screwed up because of the movie [TV series]," he says a little bitter. "I had to go to private school and had my own teachers. When others got to go play football or just hang around, I had to sit and learn the script of the studios. I will not allow that this happen with my kids."

Shy

We are sitting in the garden of his hotel in Rome where Luke Halpin just finished his first movie in Europe: If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, the story of American tourists traveling through Europe in 15 days through eight countries. Luke plays a young hippie who chases his girl who is traveling with the group.

Hilarie Thompson, who is the female co star, was his first film kiss. Luke was not nervous. Millions of moviegoers can see this, he says with his gray-green eyes.

The [Luke's] first private kiss was much better. That happed six years ago and he was also very cool during his first kiss. "I was very shy and I am still very shy," he says. But the kiss had to happen. I ask him how it was. "I took her in my arms and right then I had to sneeze. But then I could kiss her so good - well, you don't need to know all of that". The young woman is Pamela Franklin (19), an American actress [NOTE: Pamela Franklin is British, not American] who got famous through a movie with Marlon Brando [The Night of the Following Day, 1967]. Luke went to London to see her. But I do not get much information out of him. "I cannot just go to a woman and talk to her - I can only adore her from far away."

What kind of girls do you like? "Don't say girls; say woman," he tells me, this young man. "I don't like the term girls. My wife must be good and intelligent, faithful and beautiful. I will find her and marry her, you can bet on that."

At the moment, he is planning to sail around the world. "I will buy a big sailboat," he tells me. "For one or two years I want to sail across the oceans and it does not matter where I go. I would have loved to live in the 17th century as a pirate and servant of a beautiful queen." He smiles, and I do not know if this is a joke. "I know one thing for sure: at age 30, I will have a house on the ocean with a big garden and a swimming pool - one for Flipper."

(English translation by George Dillmann; prepared for The Luke Halpin Gallery, May 2012)



Original German text