Remembering Tom Laughlin, Creator of Biracial Screen Icon ‘Billy Jack’ and Innovator of the Wide Release Film
Tom Laughlin, who wrote, produced, directed, and starred in
a series of films about a troubled Vietnam vet named “Billy Jack” that
unexpectedly became hits despite devastating reviews, has died at the age of
82. According to his “Billy Jack”
website, Laughlin died “at sunset” on December 12.
According to his daughter, Teresa Laughlin, his death was caused by
complications of pneumonia.
The half-white, half-Native American character, Billy Jack,
was introduced in a 1967 movie, “The Born Losers,” in which he battled an
outlaw motorcycle gang. But it wasn’t
until the second film, “Billy Jack” (1971), that anyone took notice. A violent pacifist fighting against racists
on the behalf of Native American children at a Freedom School in Arizona, Billy
Jack, who never gave up, had much in common with his creator. The distributor, Warner Bros, barely marketed
”Billy Jack,” and the movie was not a commercial success. So Laughlin fought for two years to get the
rights back.
After Laughlin succeeded, he re-released the movie himself,
spending heavily on television and radio advertising and renting theaters (an
unusual technique called “four-walling”). Instead of moving the film slowly into theaters as was customary then,
he saturated the country. “Billy Jack”
ended up grossing $98 million. It was
helped along by its theme song, “One Tin Soldier,” which became a hit and by
its mixture of violence and idealism in the service of making a better world.
A year later, in 1974, Laughlin and his wife, Delores Taylor
who was his co-producer and co-star, opened “The Trial of Billy Jack” in 1,100
theaters plus 180 four-wall engagements. In the New York Times, critic Vincent Canby called the movie “nearly
three hours of naivete.” Audiences didn’t
care, and the Laughlins recouped in seven days all the money they had spent
producing the movie and advertising it.
Laughlin’s success in marketing the two movies had the
effect of changing the way Hollywood studios released films. A year later, one of the first films to
follow in his footsteps of saturation booking and a national advertising
campaign was “Jaws.”
Laughlin was passionate about other things than films. He started a Montessori school in Santa
Monica when he decided public schools were not properly educating his children,
and he was as fervent a devotee of martial arts as his iconic character.
In his final Billy Jack film, “Billy Jack Goes to Washington”
(1977), loosely based on Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Billy Jack is made a senator and battles a corrupt senator and
governor. It had only a limited release. After that, Laughlin disappeared from view.
Laughlin is survived by Taylor, his wife of 60 years, three
children and eight grandchildren.
