The Infidel

http://www.thewrap.com/tom-laughlin-...-jack-dead-82/

Mondo Kane

A year older than Peter O'Toole? Wow

Josh-da-man

One tin soldier rides away...

islandclaws

Hippie b.s. aside, I love the first Billy Jack. He had a great presence on screen. Strong, silent, confident.

Giles

I saw the first film at a screening at my Jr. High, but have not seen the sequels - guess I should try to find them and watch them out of respect and remembrance

JasonF

My wife's absolute favorite movie is Billy Jack, She watched it dozens (hundreds?) of times as a kid. One of the first DVDs I bought was to get her the Billy Jack collection.

Rest in peace, Tom.

Jack Straw

I was in love with One Tin Soldier and that movie back in 1971 (i.e. 3 million years ago).

stingermck

Born Losers and Billy Jack are great, the other 2 lean a little hippie though. RIP

mrhan

I was too young to see it when it was first released. Saw it a few years later after I got this magazine.

Ash Ketchum

THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK is three hours long! I saw it at an advance screening at the old Warner Cinerama on Broadway where it was sandwiched in between a kung fu double bill. The more serious TRIAL got, the more the audience laughed at it. I have no idea how it would hold up today. But at least I got to see the end of ATTACK OF THE KUNG FU GIRLS, starring Cheng Pei Pei, and the beginning of STING OF THE DRAGON MASTERS (aka WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES), starring Angela Mao. (And it was a school night--I was reviewing TRIAL for my college paper.) I've since gotten the DVDs of both of those kung fu films and revisited them multiple times--and reviewed them on IMDB. Who knew when I sat there 39 years ago that I'd eventually be reviewing all three films that were being shown!

A McLaughlin story: he campaigned for George McGovern for President in 1972 and McGovern didn't realize the force of Laughlin's popularity until the campaign rolled into a small town in the midwest somewhere and the kids went nuts upon seeing Laughlin and the high school band immediately began to play "One Tin Soldier."

d2cheer

Weird...thought he was already dead.

Mondo Kane

Cool! I never knew about a comic mag. I'm surprised it wasn't made by Marvel since they did all the pop-culture comics (Star Wars, Alice Cooper,etc)

mndtrp

I only know him from Billy Jack. Like others have said, it's a bit hippie, but still pretty awesome.

JimRochester

I was surprised to find out, he didn't do his own fighting in Billy Jack. He was a student but not very good yet. The master donned the hat and performed the fighting for him.

wm lopez

You can tell if you watch closely.

JumpCutz

That looks like a Neal Adams cover.

mrhan

It sure is. He did a bunch of them. I have a few including the Billy Jack issue.
I had Adams sign a poster of the ETD cover with Mr. Han.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blo...rs-of-all.html

wm lopez

Whatever happened to that magazine?

mrhan

^ It died after the kung fu craze. I think Marvel got rid of most of their magazine titles during the late 70's and early 80's. The last magazine they published was Epic; their version of Heavy Metal.

The Infidel

Everybody stopped kung fu fighting.

wm lopez

I was flipping through E!, ACCESS, ENTERTAINMENT and saw no mention of his death on Monday.
Anybody see any mention?

Ky-Fi

You just went up a notch in my book.

You're now on notch 1.

(okay, stole that joke from Starsky and Hutch)

Ky-Fi

Yep, the politics are a bit silly and dated, but Laughlin definitely brought the screen presence. I saw the first movie a lot as a kid. I would argue those were the best-done martial arts scenes in an American movie up to that point.

JasonF

Woo hoo! Notch 1!

wm lopez

The politics are not silly and dated.
This would be the perfect movie to reboot.
I can't think of another liberal movie hero except if you count Clarice Starling which I don't, but AFI did.