Thomas Robert Laughlin Jr. (August 10, 1931 – December 12, 2013) was an American actor, filmmaker, educator, activist, and perennial candidate. He was best known as the star and director of the Billy Jack tetralogy of action drama films, produced between 1969 and 1977. His unique promotion of the 1974's The Trial of Billy Jack (TV trailers during national news and an "opening day" nationwide release) was a major influence on the way films are marketed.
In the early 1960s, Laughlin put his film career on hiatus to start a Montessori preschool in Santa Monica, California; it became the largest school of its kind in the United States. In his later years, he sought the office of President of the United States in 1992, 2004, and 2008. He was involved in psychology and domestic violence counseling, writing several books on Jungian psychology and developing theories on the causes of cancer. He was married to actress Delores Taylor from 1954 until his death.
Early life and career (1931–1960)
Laughlin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Margaret and Thomas Laughlin. He attended Washington High School, where he was involved in an athletics controversy that made headlines throughout the city, caused by Laughlin being forced to attend another school for a brief period, making him ineligible to play football at his former school on his return.
Laughlin attended the University of Wisconsin, before transferring to Marquette University; he played football at both. He played safety and halfback at Marquette.
Laughlin decided to become an actor after seeing a production of A Streetcar Named Desire. According to a 1956 newspaper interview, he became involved in the drama program at Marquette after being encouraged by a university professor, Father John J. Walsh.
While a student, he formed a stock group and directed and starred in a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. He finally transferred to the University of South Dakota, where he majored in radio acting, directing, and producing. He met his future wife Delores Taylor in South Dakota.
Laughlin wrote the original screenplay for the film Billy Jack in 1954, after witnessing the treatment of Native Americans in his wife's hometown, Winner, South Dakota. The two wed on October 15, 1954.
He began his screen-acting career in the 1955 television series Climax!. From there, he went on to appear in several feature films, including: These Wilder Years, (1956), Tea and Sympathy (1956), Lafayette Escadrille (1958), and South Pacific (1958).
He appeared in several episodes of various television series throughout the late 1950s. In 1958, Mr. Laughlin appeared in a small but memorable role in South Pacific, the movie version of the James Michener book and Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as a Navy pilot, Lt. Buzz Adams. In 1959, he was cast as young Tom Fowler in the episode "The Fight Back" of the NBC Western series, Riverboat. In the story line, Fowler has made himself the boss of Hampton, a corrupt river town near Vicksburg, Mississippi. He blocks farmers from shipping their crops to market. In a dispute over a wedding held on the river vessel, the Enterprise, a lynch mob led by Fowler comes after Captain Grey Holden (series star Darren McGavin). Also appearing in this episode are John Ireland as Chris Slade and Karl Swenson as Ansel Torgin. That same year, Laughlin starred in the western series Tales of Wells Fargo, the episode titled "The Quiet Village". Laughlin also appeared in the 1959 movie Battle of the Coral Sea with Cliff Robertson and L. Q. Jones.
Also in 1959, Laughlin appeared in the film Gidget as Lover Boy. However, he failed to earn a living in the early years, having told People magazine in 1975, "We were living on $5 a week and eating Spam. I stole Christmas cards from a church so I could write home saying how well we were, but then I couldn't afford the stamps."
Laughlin's first starring film role was in Robert Altman's 1957 film The Delinquents, in which he played Scotty White, a teenager who gets mixed up with a gang when he is told he can no longer see his girlfriend. Despite the film's low budget, it became a cult film, with Alfred Hitchcock reportedly among its fans. However, Laughlin and Altman did not get along well, having sharply differing views on acting, Altman later describing Laughlin as "an unbelievable pain in the ass."
Laughlin made his directorial debut later that year with The Proper Time, though the film wasn't released until 1962. The film was a romantic drama set on the campus of UCLA. Laughlin shot the film on the campus in six days working with a $20,000 budget.
Laughlin wrote, directed, and starred in The Young Sinner. Originally filmed in 1960, and shot in Milwaukee over a period of 14 days, it is the story of a star high-school athlete who falls deeper and deeper into trouble after being caught in bed with his girlfriend. The film was intended to be the first of a trilogy titled We Are All Christ. It premiered in 1963 under the original title Among the Thorns, which was changed to The Young Sinner upon its 1965 re-release. In 1960, Laughlin planned to make a film, Poison in Our Land, based on the true story of a Texas couple affected by atomic radiation, but the project was never realized.
In 1959, Laughlin and his wife founded a Montessori preschool in Santa Monica, California. By 1961, Laughlin had left the film business to devote all of his time to the school, which by 1964 had become the largest school of its kind in the United States. It was profiled by Time in July of that year. However, by 1965, the school had gone bankrupt. One of his students was Christian Brando, son of Laughlin's friend, Marlon Brando.
In 1965, Laughlin told the Milwaukee Sentinel that he planned to make a film on the life of a noted Catholic priest, Father William DuBay. However, the picture did not get past the planning stages. Two years later, in 1967, he wrote, directed (as T. C. Frank), and starred in the motorcycle-gang exploitation film The Born Losers. This was the first picture in which the character of Billy Jack appeared. It was a surprise box-office hit.
After The Born Losers, Laughlin was set to begin a film project with backing from such figures as Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Candice Bergen, and director Robert Wise. The movie was to be a documentary on the issues facing African Americans in the 1960s and would have focused greatly on the life of Martin Luther King Jr., followed by a discussion of race. However, the film was never made.
He followed this up with the sequel to The Born Losers, Billy Jack, in 1971. American International Pictures initially agreed to distribute the picture, but after viewing it, the studio refused to release the film unless many of the political references – as well as frontal nudity – were cut. This led the Laughlins to withhold the sound reels of the movie, which in effect made it a silent film. Eventually, Laughlin made a distribution deal with Warner Bros., but he disapproved of the studio's marketing of the film, sued Warner, and re-released the picture himself in 1973. The movie's re-release was successful but controversial. Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, wrote, "Billy Jack seems to be saying that a gun is better than a constitution in the enforcement of justice. Is democracy totally obsolete, then? Is our only hope that the good fascists defeat the bad fascists?"