Tom Laughlin, aka: Billy Jack

[JJ_BPK]

RIP Bad Ass, Vaya con Dios..

He stared in, wrote, directed a set of "Billy Jack" movies in the 60t's. A cross between a hippy, kung fu fighter, social activist, & conservative. Married Delores Taylor in 1954..

Tom Laughlin, the maverick actor and filmmaker best known for the "Billy Jack" films, has died, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. He was 82.

Laughlin, who played football at Milwaukee's Washington High School and attended Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died Thursday in Thousand Oaks, Calif., his family announced Sunday.

Laughlin's website, billyjack.com, also reported his death but doesn't list a cause. In 2001, it was reported that the actor was being treated for "base-of-tongue cancer" at a Los Angeles hospital.

Laughlin was best known for the "Billy Jack" films, which also starred his wife, Delores Taylor. In 1967, he wrote and directed (under the pseudonym T.C. Frank) and starred in "The Born Losers," a motorcycle exploitation film that became a big box-office hit.

The 1971 sequel, the vigilante-themed "Billy Jack," was, after a legal battle with Warner Bros., released independently. It also became a box-office smash, though it generated controversy for its suggestion of guns and violence as justice-seeking tools.

Laughlin co-produced and starred in all four "Jack" films, including the final one, 1977's "Billy Jack Goes to Washington," about the title character taking on corruption in the U.S. Senate.

In a case of life imitating art — or more specifically, imitating "Billy Jack Goes to Washington" — Laughlin ran for president three times, the last time in 2004 for the Republican nomination against incumbent President George W. Bush.

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