Tom Laughlin: ‘Billy Jack’ actor-filmmaker who died last week helped to revolutionize film distribution patterns in North America (photo: Tom Laughlin in ‘Billy Jack’) Tom Laughlin, best known for the Billy Jack movies he wrote, directed, and starred in opposite his wife Delores Taylor (since 1954), died of complications from pneumonia last Thursday, December 12, 2013, at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, northwest of Los Angeles County. Tom Laughlin (born on August 10, 1931, in Minneapolis) was 82; in the last dozen years or so, he suffered from a number of ailments, including cancer and a series of strokes. Tom Laughlin movies: ‘The Delinquents’ and fighting with Robert Altman In the mid-’50s, after acting in college plays and in his own stock company while attending university in Wisconsin, Tom Laughlin began landing small roles on television, e.g., Climax!, Navy Log, The Millionaire. At that time, he was also cast in minor parts in a handful of Hollywood movies, among them Vincente Minnelli’s drama Tea and Sympathy (1956), starring Deborah Kerr and John Kerr, and Joshua Logan’s musical South Pacific (1958), with John Kerr, Rossano Brazzi, and Mitzi Gaynor. Laughlin’s sole lead during that period was his portrayal of a disillusioned youth who joins a street gang in Robert Altman’s first feature, The Delinquents (1957), an independently made, micro-budget production shot in and around Kansas City. According to Patrick McGilligan’s Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff, The Delinquents was a difficult shoot, for "the square, free-wheeling Altman and the bohemian, mercurial Laughlin" did not get along. Tom Laughlin, in fact, wanted to quit the film, but was persuaded to stay on following a peace treaty with the future MASH, Nashville, and Gosford Park director. Years later, as found on Jeff Stafford’s piece on The Delinquents, Robert Altman would describe Tom Laughlin as "’an unbelievable pain in the ass,’ totally egomaniacal, guilty that he had not become a priest, with a ‘big Catholic hang-up’ and a James Dean complex." His film career basically stalled — there would be only a handful of minor roles in the late ’50s and early ’60s — in 1959 Tom Laughlin and Delores Taylor founded a Montessori preschool in Santa Monica. Despite its initial success — the Montessori educational philosophy emphasizes human development techniques — the school went bankrupt in 1965. Tom Laughlin and the ‘Billy Jack’ movies: ‘The Born Losers’ Two years later, Tom Laughlin — as actor, director (billed as T.C. Frank), and producer — was back on the big screen with the first Billy Jack movie, The Born Losers (sometimes referred to as Born Losers, without the article), a low-budget exploitation flick that became a surprising box office hit. In the film, Laughlin plays the part-white, part-Native American Vietnam War veteran Billy Jack, a martial-arts expert who comes to the rescue of a rape victim (played by Elizabeth James, who also doubled as the film’s screenwriter) and a whole town under siege by a brutal motorcycle gang. Released by the second-rank American International Pictures, for two weekends in a row the $400,000-budgeted film featuring mostly unknowns displaced from the top of the North American box office chart Arthur Penn’s Warner Bros.-distributed Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. According to the website The Numbers, The Born Losers ultimately pulled in $36 million. (Note: the site doesn’t provide a source for that figure, which would represent approx. $241 million in 2013 dollars; also unclear is whether that amount refers to the film’s domestic box office grosses or the distributor’s rentals.) ‘Billy Jack’: Tom Laughlin vs. Richard Zanuck and Richard Nixon At first, things didn’t look good for the Born Losers sequel, Billy Jack, directed and produced by Laughlin, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Delores Taylor. Inspired by the way Native Americans were treated in Taylor’s hometown of Winner, South Dakota, Billy Jack‘s original draft had been written in 1954. Production on the self-financed film began in 1969, but was interrupted after American International Pictures backed away from the project. Richard Zanuck’s 20th Century Fox stepped in for a while, but conflicts arose as a result of the film’s politically charged message. As per The Amazing Story Behind the Legend of Billy Jack, Zanuck "wanted to cut out all the scenes Tom Laughlin felt gave Billy Jack its ambience and message." Worst of all, Zanuck, described as a "principal player in Nixon’s reelection campaign in California," wanted to cut the city council sequence featuring the following bit of dialogue: "The streets in our country are in turmoil," recites a local student (played by Tom Laughlin and Delores Taylor’s daughter T.C.). "The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might, and our Republic is in danger — yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order. Without law and order, our nation cannot survive." "You wanna know who wrote it?" asks another student. "Adolph Hitler wrote it in 1932, and everyone from Nixon’s cabinet to your council is repeating it today." Following a stand-off pitting 20th Century Fox — which held the Billy Jack negative in its possession — and Tom Laughlin and Delores Taylor — who held the film’s sound in their possession, Fox sold Billy Jack back to Laughlin for $100,000. It was then that Warner Bros. became involved in the film’s release. ["Dead at 82: Billy Jack Actor Tom Laughlin" continues on the next page. See link below.] Tom Laughlin Billy Jack photo: National Student Film Corporation / Warner Bros. This post was originally published at Alt Film Guide (http://www.altfg.com/). Not to be republished without permission.