Gumption: America's Gutsiest Troublemakers

by Nick Offerman

  When the evil, racist, white townspeople threaten violence, Jean and the kids at the school enjoy the Robin Hood–flavored protection of Billy Jack, who is fully onboard with their pacifist teachings, but as he says in the film, “Jean and the kids at the school tell me that I’m supposed to control my violent temper. . . . I try. I really try. Though when I see [this] . . . I just go berserk!” At this point, Billy Jack beats the piss out of the white townie bullies with some devastating hapkido moves. This turns out to be more of the rule than the exception. Since Billy Jack can’t control the rage he feels as the result of society’s injustices, the film ends up a very violent paean to nonviolence.

  I’ve witnessed a good deal of criticism focused on the inconsistencies in Billy Jack, which I have no interest in debating. All I know is that millions of people, including your author, have found themselves profoundly moved by the film’s core message, that the evils of society are pervasive enough to drive a person to fight, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Things are bad, and something must be done to foment a change. Billy Jack the man, warts and all, shoulders this burden for all of us, which is why, at the end of the film as he’s hauled away in a police car and hundreds of citizens lining the road raise a single fist in solidarity with him, I raise my fist as well.

  I’ll be the first to claim an ignorance in my ability to coldly analyze the film’s foibles, because I’m too busy being moved by the hero’s plight. Perhaps this is because, regardless of any missteps on the part of Tom Laughlin, he was at least doing some-goddamn-thing about it. His Billy Jack delivers the truth with such a measured pace and undeniable sincerity, I don’t give a shit if the story is confusing. This man versus his fellow man, and this man versus himself, happens to be some material I can sink my teeth into, and so it’s not that I forgive the other parts of the film so much as I just don’t notice them.

  When I first saw the film, I was about 98 percent naïveté, newly arrived “out in the world” from the small, conservative town I’d grown up in. For the first time, I was living smack-dab among the people on the receiving end of racism and sexism and homophobia. Here was a fellow in a film willing to kick the rich, white bad guy right upside his face when the bad guy (and his thugs, because the bad guy was a chickenshit) had him cornered. It doesn’t take a lot of arithmetic to comprehend why I would have found that pretty goddamn swell, regardless of Leonard Maltin’s admonitions.

  An attribute in Billy Jack, I think, that might have also held true for Tom Laughlin was a stubborn adherence to his own solitary path, including a distrust of authority and “the establishment,” which ultimately is thought to have undermined his career. When Warner Bros. released Billy Jack, Laughlin was extremely underwhelmed with their strategy, and, sure enough, the film foundered out of the gate. He sued the studio to reclaim the film, which he then rereleased on his own.

  In a stroke of brilliance, fueled by his unwavering conviction, Tom Laughlin single-handedly forged the technique of releasing a film nationwide all at once, a “wide release,” bolstered by TV advertisements planted during local news broadcasts. Such a move had not been previously dared. This gutsy gambit, combined with a thirst for social change in America’s younger generation, turned Laughlin’s film into a box office juggernaut, making it, as mentioned, the highest-grossing independent film of all time (after adjusting for inflation). He must have been doing something right.

  Here’s the thing, or at least here’s a thing: People have vastly differing tastes. People also have vastly disparate levels of discernment. If you look at the numbers, you would have to assume that the McDonald’s factory beef burger sandwich is the most delicious sandwich. In truth, it’s pretty easy to understand that in fact, it’s simply the easiest choice for a lot of consumers. If there was a fast-food joint selling a Reuben sandwich for the price of a Big Mac, we might see some different stats. I used to judge people for their lazy choices, which, in effect, was me merely judging myself for having the capacity to treat my body so poorly as to eat the burger sandwich of laziness. I believe we all have the capacity for such mediocrity, which is why those motherfuckers are making so much money off us.

  So I have learned to refrain from judging my fellow humans in their choices, or at least do my best to refrain. I’ve certainly improved considerably, but I’m sure there will always be room for more bettering, since I am, after all, human. As was Tom Laughlin.

  I like the way Roger Ebert put it in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Laughlin and Taylor surface so rarely because their movies are personal ventures, financed in unorthodox ways and employing the kind of communal chance-taking that Hollywood finds terrifying. The chances they take sometimes create flaws in their films, but flaws that suggest they were trying to do too much, never too little.”

  There’s not much better praise for a person in my book than that his or her heart was in the right place and the utmost of gumption was employed. No matter what anybody says to me about the films of Tom Laughlin, I will never cease to raise my fist as “One Tin Soldier” (the film’s theme song, by Coven) kicks into the chorus.

  Tom Laughlin would have occupied a place in this book no matter what. But an amazing set of opportunities gave me a personal connection to Tom and his family that makes this chapter even dearer to me. It began in March of 2013, when I had the extreme pleasure of appearing (vocally) as a guest on The Treatment, the venerable NPR show about the film business, hosted by über-cinéaste Elvis Mitchell. Elvis nearly made me mist up with gratitude at the simple attention he had paid to much of my acting work in films that are usually much too obscure to be noticed by professional film buffs. Among the details he had gleaned was an awareness of my devotion to Billy Jack. When we had finished the interview and were saying our brotherly “so longs,” he mentioned that he was responsible for programming screenings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and would I like to host a screening of Billy Jack? Suffice it to say I answered with enthusiasm.

  I had never seen Billy Jack projected on a big screen, and so I was rather beside myself with excitement. Shortly before the screening, we received word backstage that Tom Laughlin’s son, Frank, would be in attendance, as well as actress Julie Webb, who played the troubled teenager Barbara in the film.

  Suddenly things took a strange shift for me, as it hadn’t remotely occurred to me that Laughlin’s family might be around, let alone any of the actors from the film, despite the fact that I had actually worked with one for a day in the Patrick Swayze/Melanie Griffith romp Forever Lulu. It was shooting at the storied Hollywood watering hole Boardner’s, where I was as pleased as punch to be squaring off with another of my life’s heroes, Mr. Swayze. In between takes of the role I assayed, “Man at Boardner’s,” I was chatting with another of the bar patrons, a cute, rather elfin fellow who, in the course of things, mentioned that his name was Beans Morocco. Well, if you were as sweaty for Billy Jack as myself, you would have immediately recognized that name from the credits, in his hilarious work with Howard Hesseman and the improv players from the film’s Freedom School. Comprised mainly of San Francisco–based troupe the Committee, the group hilariously commandeers a couple of sequences of the film with improvised comedy scenes. Beans Morocco plays the cute, rather elfin fellow with the hat.

  He seemed somewhat surprised at being spotted from his work in Billy Jack, which was nothing short of sacrilege to me. I at least got Patrick Swayze to agree with me that Billy Jack was worthy of a young man’s adulation. (You best believe that there was also a great deal of Road House worship happening, not to mention Red Dawn and Point Break. The first AD was not onboard, however, when every time he would call, “Roll cameras!,” I would answer with, “Wolverines!”)

  At the LACMA screening with Elvis Mitchell, however, I was nothing short of flabbergasted that these vestiges of real life were invading my own personal Billy Jack fantasy. I was still so provincial in my comprehension of show business that I was utterly gut-punched when I
met Frank Laughlin after the screening, with his lovely daughter, Jessica, and he mentioned that his mom and dad, Delores and Tom, would have loved to attend, if they’d only known about it! Frank and I struck up a friendship, and he and Jessica came to see Megan and me in our stage production of Annapurna, a great two-hander by Sharr White. We were loosely planning an occasion for me to meet his dad between all the traveling I’d been doing for work, when Tom unexpectedly fell ill and passed away. I was devastated to have missed my opportunity to shake the hand of the man who had brought me so much inspiration, but at the same time I was very touched when his kids invited me to the funeral.

  Pat Roberts and I drove up to Malibu together, as we had so many times before, heading to the beach or to deliver furniture in my old ’59 Ford flatbed truck. This time the atmosphere in the car was weighted with a strange combination of excitement and somber reverence. We arrived at Our Lady of Malibu Catholic Church and found parking. It was immediately strange, as we walked up and into the church, and a few people began to recognize me from Parks and Recreation as I greeted Frank and his two sisters, Teresa and Christina. I was rather embarrassed at their generosity in allowing me, a relative stranger, to attend this private event in the midst of their grief.

  Pat and I sat in the very back of the congregation, to the extreme house right. My mind was roiling to keep up even as my heart was vacillating with conflicting emotions. One, I was titillated to be at the funeral of my hero. Pat agreed. Two, I was ashamed of my titillation, which felt somehow cheap in the face of the reality of our surroundings. Pat agreed. Three, the ceremony began with Tom’s widow, Delores, being helped into a front pew. Suffering from the onset of Alzheimer’s, she was still beautiful, with the stately air of a woman who had accomplished a great deal while saying little.

  The priest kicked things off with a reverential welcome, and I was aghast as it slowly dawned on me that there was to be no flaming pyre? No sacrificial bighorn sheep or grizzly bear? “There won’t be any trumpets blowin’ come the judgment day”? What the fuck?! Didn’t these people know whom it was we were burying today?

  At this point, I caught myself, extremely mortified at the power of my selfishness. Of course these people knew. “These people” belonged to Tom Laughlin, and he belonged to them. I was the egotistical asshole who had been graciously allowed by these people to attend this solemn occasion with my asshole friend. Pat agreed. Like true modern Americans, we wanted this man’s funeral to be somehow about us and our (superficial) experience of him. Fortunately, we caught ourselves in time to arrest our descent to the nadir of good taste toward which we were plummeting.

  I know how a Catholic Mass goes, having grown up reciting it. I find it pretty mundane, so I continued to be displeased that Tom Laughlin was going to be sent off to glory with a mere Catholic service. Then his granddaughters, Jessica, Ellery, and Lily, ascended the pulpit to deliver the readings from the gospels, and things began to calm down a bit in my asshole alarm centers. Here were beautiful young ladies, timorously delivering ancient poetry in ceremonial honor of their deceased patriarch. This was more like it.

  Jessica eased us into the doctrine with a combination Bible verse/popular rock song by the Byrds, which got some black-stocking’d toes tapping and girdled hips swaying (mine). She chanted, “A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,” etcetera. You know how it goes. It holds up. The Byrds knew what they were about.

  Ellery said things like, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” Now, this I could also wrap my head around. This succinctly chosen passage from the Book of John is an example of when the Bible works best for me, that is, when it can be easily applied metaphorically to our real, tangible lives. The older I get and the more I pay attention, life’s messages seem to reiterate: We’re all the same. We’re all in this together. Interestingly, sitting there in church, I thought of Tom Laughlin’s impact on my life, which made me think of John Lennon, who penned, “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”

  Lily picked up the scriptural baton with “Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” The beat. It goes on.

  Like any such function—baptisms, weddings, a few particularly memorable key parties—this funeral had my mind swimming with existential questions, as well as an examination of my own personal scorecard: How was I doing as a husband, a son, a sibling, a friend, an uncle, and so forth? I quickly switched from being disappointed at the lack of fireworks in Our Lady of Malibu to being moved by the sincerity of the service and the privilege of being invited to sit in remembrance and celebration of an astonishing man.

  That’s when the bagpipes fired up. The player, in full dress, launched into a few selections that brought wetness to even the most insensitive eyes in the house. “Abide with Me,” “The Minstrel Boy,” “The Wearing of the Green,” and, finally, “Danny Boy.” I had wanted pageantry in this observance. Now, this was something like. Once the family made their recessional, Pat and I drifted outside to discuss the rich experience and what assholes we were. The congregation was invited next door to the multipurpose room, where a more informal celebration was about to go down.

  I spoke briefly with each of the three children, Frank, Teresa, and Chrissy, and they convinced me to stay, despite my embarrassment at feeling like an outsider. I’m so glad I did, because act two of the afternoon contained much more of the flavor I had been hoping for.

  Frank started things off by thanking us all for being there and then using the word fuck, which immediately let us know that misbehavior was welcome. He went on to liken his childhood (favorably) to “being raised by wolves.” With the comforting demeanor of a good father, as well as the oldest child, Frank thanked all the appropriate people for putting together this event and went on to share some anecdotes about his folks.

  The most indelible story I heard later from Frank was about the way Tom and Delores reclaimed Billy Jack from Richard Zanuck Jr., who was running 20th Century Fox at the time. As Frank tells it, Zanuck was deeply involved in CREEP, or the Committee to Re-Elect the President, Richard Nixon. There is a line in Billy Jack, delivered by Teresa, no less, comparing Nixon’s actions to those of Hitler, which of course could not remain in a film coming from Zanuck’s studio.

  Since Tom had (approval of) “final cut” on the film, Zanuck had to secretly plot to cut the offensive dialogue. Unfortunately for his machinations, a secretary in his office notified Tom and Delores that this was happening. The Laughlin duo neatly ran over to the sound studio where the film was being mixed and kidnapped the many reels of sound tape, which they then held for ransom. Zanuck had the film reels but Tom had the sound, without which the film was merely an unreleasable silent film art project.

  Zanuck was notified by Tom that he needed to let Tom buy back the film, which only served to make Zanuck laugh. Tom told him that for every day he refused to sell the film back to Tom, Tom would erase a reel of sound. Presumably Zanuck laughed again, until Tom sent over a reel of blank magstripe. Zanuck absolutely flipped out and sent the reel down to the lab to be analyzed, only to receive confirmation that it had in fact been wiped.
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br />   The plan worked, and Zanuck allowed Tom to orchestrate the following sale by Warner Bros. Frank spoke with a grudging respect for his dad’s methods. Although things didn’t always go his way, you had to hand it to Tom Laughlin for sticking up for the things he felt were right.

  Teresa spoke next, emotionally, laughing about the way her father used to challenge studio executives to beat her in tennis or arm wrestling to settle lawsuits and contractual disputes.

  Side story, if you’ll permit me—in 2014 I had the pleasure of screening Billy Jack a second time in New York City at the IFC Center down on Sixth Avenue, and Teresa was able to attend with me. She is the only one of the three kids who plays a prominent role in the film (Frank doubled his dad in motorcycle shots, Christina had just been born months earlier), playing one of the brighter, more outspoken kids at the Freedom School.

  I had probably seen the film ten times before the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) made it possible to discern that she was actually the daughter of Tom and Delores. Pat Roberts and I had an LP of songs from the film, upon which Teresa had a couple of tunes, and so we were very big fans of her music as well. When we discovered that she was also the daughter of the filmmakers, well, she achieved a status in our household previously reserved only for the likes of Meat Loaf or Dusty Springfield.

  Watching the film then, next to Teresa, who was embarrassed about “this art thing” she had done with her parents, was very humanizing. Seeing the film through her eyes gave me such a different perspective, which made me appreciate her entire family with a profound, new understanding. That they made these films together only served to redouble my respect for the Laughlin-Taylors, using the tools at their disposal, karate chops included, to communicate a message of love to the world.