 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||
| Luke Halpin (TV Times, Dec 21, 1966, Australia) | |||
From Luke Halpin
star of Flipper
TV Times, Dec 21, 1966 (Australia)
I've been one of the stars of the Flipper series for about four years now, but I'm not really satisfied.
Don't think I'm ungrateful for what Flipper's done for me: I'm just not satisfied with myself. I'd like to show that I can do more than play one character. I'd like to make a movie in which I play a real baddie.
When I tell my friends about this, they laugh, and say: "What, you a bad guy!" And this is the reason I want to do it. I'm in danger of being typecast as a good boy who does what his father tells him and looks after his little brother.
As much as I love Flipper, it hasn't really given me a chance to show what I can do as an actor.
Most people think that it must feel pretty strange to be in show business, and yet be thousands of miles away from where the action is. Well, it is.
Working down here in Miami, Florida, 3000 miles away from Hollywood where most of the TV series and movies are made, I have often thought that maybe I wasn't in the swim of things. that things were passing me by. I don't really even know what's happening in the very place where, as an actor, mhy business chances are.
But then when I really stop and think about it, I realise [sic] that I've been pretty lucky. Here I am, still a teenager (and enjoying every minute of it), and I have gone through my teen years in one of the best places for a kid to grow up. Certainly one of the prettiest in the country.
Miami, and all the places near it, is a great place for a boy to go through these exciting years, and I envy my TV brother, Tommy Norden, because he now gets to go through the same thing, while much of it is now behind me.
In the long run, maybe it will prove to be a good thing for us to grow up down here. Mabye it's better that these years were spent away from Hollywood. Who knows?
Out of things? I don't think so. I know what kids all over the world are doing, and I'm doing it all and then some.
I loved water sports even before I started the Flipper series. That may sound strange if you know that I'm from New York City where it isn't usual for a boy to get interested in swimming and sailing. But if you like the water enough, you find a way of getting to it. When I got to Florida I was in heaven. I don't have my own boat here in Florida, but it's really not necessary.
The Ivan Tors Company, which produces Flipper, has so many boats that I can always get one to use.
|
|
 |
|
|
And I take advantage of all of them. I date many girls but I don't make a practice of going steady.
I guess I'm just going to be a confirmed bachelor. I know I haven't had too much of my life to do much "confirming", but I sure don't see marriage in the stars for me. Of course, I've heard other guys say that, too, and then wham!
Some people have asked me where I consider my home to be: if it's in Hollywood, where I was for a short while, or in New York where I was born and spent my early years or here in Miami.
"Home" is a funny word. Right now, I think of Miami as my home. I have a nice place where I live in the city, and my parents are not far away.
But if tomorrow my career took me to Hollywood, then I would try to start thinking of that as my home.
Mostly, home is where you are happy. And I am happy here. This is mainly due to my friends. It hasn't always been that way, though.
They didn't like me at first. The kids that I met who were my own age here could not think of me as a person but rather as a performer, and many of them shied away from me thinking that I was going to play the star with them.
When they found out that I wasn't that way, they became friendly, and now I have very few problems.
Of course, whenever I meet someone new it starts all over again.
One thing that was difficult about meeting a lot of kids is that I didn't go to a high school, which is a big part of a normal American teenage social environment.
An actor has an unusual educational set-up to begin with. He must work only part of the day and go to a private tutor the rest of the day. But with me, I would do some filming for Flipper for a few weeks without any tutoring at all, then when there was a rest period or a short vacation, I would cram all I'd missed into those days [b]y going to school all day long.
I am planning to take a trip to Hollywood soon. I haven't been there in six years. Six years! Boy, how time has flown! But I think it's finally time for me to find out what other opportunities there are for me as an actor.
I have had a lot of fun and learned a lot playing with the most wonderful animal in the world, as well as all the human actors and crew connected with Flipper.
But it may be time for me to be expanding my career horizons. I may be free to go in new directions at the end of this year, and my trip to Hollywood will tell me more what there is for me.