Norman Vincent McLafferty

"Mac" landed the part of the Old Salt in Peter Berg's military science fiction war film Battleship at the ripe age of 90. Having had a naval career for 27 years and being a veteran of four wars, a military war film was a thrill for him to shoot aboard the battleship Mighty Mo. Mac served aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma until July 1941 when, by winning a coin toss, was able to take shore duty to spend more time with the hapa haole sweetheart he would eventually marry. But, it wasn't long before he found himself aboard another vessel bound for Palmyra Atoll, 1000 miles south of Hawaii. It was there that they received the announcement over the radio on December 7, 1941, "This is no drill." Whenever he remembers that day, his smile invariably fades as he remembers the feeling of knowing that Battleship Row was being attacked back in Honolulu, that his ship, his shipmates, were in the midst of it. He thought of that coin toss; thought of those he left behind. Norman McLafferty isn't entirely new to movie making. In 1964 he met the "Duke" while filming In Harm's Way, the acclaimed World War II film that landed him a speaking part. Seventy years later and he's still married to his Hawaiian sweetheart from Kapahulu who he met in that summer of 1941 and married in March 1943. Together they have lived abroad in Japan and together have traveled to all the states except seven. Until recently, Mac has been an avid golfer and teacher of golf. It's game he's played more than eighty-five years. He's also an artist, who enjoys watercolor painting. Three of his paintings hang in the Tripler Army Medical Center outside the offices of the Adult Medicine Clinic, a donation from Mac to the hospital that has cared for his ten children, himself and his wife over many decades. At 94, he's still a formidable Old Salt and always thinking about what he's going to do next.