PARIS, France — The beaches of Malibu, California, and Normandy, France, might be thousands of miles apart, but for Los Angeles filmmaker Dan Halperin, they've never been closer – thanks to his father.
Robert “Buck” Halperin is the subject of the most important film Dan Halperin has ever made.
"Finally at this stage of life, [this] is the most important in type of telling story, of wanting to sustain my dad‘s legacy," he said.
Buck grew up sailing and was part of the Navy Scouts and Raiders, which was an early version of the Navy Seals. During World War II, he not only helped design the landing craft used in the D-Day invasion, he did secret intelligence work before the allied forces ever got to the beaches of Normandy.
"They needed to find some people to go ashore, pre-invasion samples, to find out what kind of resistance there was, barricades and so forth," Halperin said.
On D-Day, Buck guided the first two waves of assault troops and saved the lives of two men drowning. He also did work in North African and in China, earning him multiple medals, including two bronze stars and one silver star.
Then after the war, Buck went back to sailing. He competed in the 1960 Rome Olympics, where at the age of 52, he earned a different kind of medal: an Olympic bronze in two-man star-class sailing.
"I believe that he may have been 52," Halperin said. "I want to say that he was the oldest man in the American Olympic team at the time."
Like many men, Buck didn’t talk about the war to his son. When he passed away, Halperin started researching his father’s life to turn it into a documentary about an American war hero and Olympic champion.
"People are like, 'Man, your dad is like Forrest Gump,' and I’m like, 'Yeah, kind of'," Halperin said. "He did all these things. Except no box of chocolate."
Halperin hopes that by telling his father's story, he can get to know more about his father’s life.
"From all the people who always said to me, 'What an amazing man,' I am finally accepting that, yeah, my dad is a great dad, great guy, and he does have this amazing story, and I’m gonna share it." he said.