page_title: Luke Halpin
section_title: Flipper
hierarchical_section_title: Luke Halpin / Career / Flipper
caption_attribution_description: Publicity photo of teen actor Luke Halpin as Sandy Ricks with one of the dolphin performers in the 1963 feature film Flipper.
context_page_description: Luke Austin Halpin is an American former actor. He became a child actor at the age of eight and is widely known for his role as Sandy Ricks in the feature films Flipper and Flipper's New Adventure, as well as for reprising his role for the NBC television series adaptation, also called Flipper.
context_section_description: Halpin's most famous role came when at age 15 he was picked to play the 12-year-old Sandy Ricks in producer Ivan Tors' 1963 feature film Flipper (filmed in the Florida Keys and Miami), starring alongside Chuck Connors, who played Sandy's father and fisherman Porter Ricks. The successful film spawned a sequel, Flipper's New Adventure (filmed mainly in the Bahamas), released in 1964, and with new co-star Brian Kelly as Porter Ricks, a trainee Park Ranger who, after his training, is assigned to the fictitious Coral Key Park. Kelly played a widowed father to Sandy (although in reality Halpin was only sixteen years younger than Kelly). Kelly and Halpin kept the same roles for the television series that began filming in the summer of 1964, adding younger brother Bud, played by Tommy Norden.
  Halpin was chosen by Tors for the role of Sandy Ricks because of his skills in the water as well as his extensive prior acting experience. He also proved able to bond quickly with the dolphins who filled the role of Flipper. This chemistry paved the way for the launching of the TV series after the two feature films. By the time filming of the TV series commenced, Halpin had become an expert skin and scuba diver and exhibited an easy athleticism that enabled him to perform many of his own stunts in and below the water including a number of dangerous scenes involving sharks. His popular TV character became defined by many water-activity related plots with him often wearing nothing more than what came to be his signature cut-off blue jeans shorts.
  The television series ran for eighty-eight episodes from 1964 to 1967 (with Halpin appearing in all but three episodes) and is still in syndication. It was filmed in the park and waters around Key Biscayne, Florida, at the Ivan Tors (now Greenwich) Studios and the Miami Seaquarium, both in Miami. The series performed strongly in the hotly contested Saturday night TV slot, rating in the Top 25 of all TV shows in its debut 1964-65 season. The series made Halpin a teen idol, especially among adolescent viewers.  He was often featured in such magazines as Bravo, Teen Life, 16 Magazine, and the earliest issues of Tiger Beat. On the basis of his appearances in the original Flipper feature films, Halpin was a guest 'contestant' on the CBS panel show To Tell the Truth just prior to the beginning of filming of the Flipper (1964 TV series), on March 30, 1964. He appeared on the show again just prior to the filming of the second season, on April 15, 1965.
caption: Halpin in the 1963 feature film Flipper
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