Podcast: Interview with Tom Laughlin (1985)

Tom Laughlin and Delores Taylor in the 1971 cult hit Billy Jack. (Photo: Handout/NY Daily News)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with actor, director and screenwriter Tom Laughlin.

At the time of the interview, Tom Laughlin was in Toronto filming The Return of Billy Jack, a planned follow-up to his Billy Jack films of the previous decade, in which he bucked the trend of 1970s film antiheroes by portraying a genuinely positive heroic figure who protected animals and children against racist thugs. The Return of Billy Jack would unfortunately never be released.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Tom Laughlin as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1985.

Kevin Courrier is a freelance writer/broadcaster, film critic and author (Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa, Randy Newman's American Dreams, 33 1/3 Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Artificial Paradise: The Dark Side of The Beatles Utopian Dream). Courrier teaches part-time film courses to seniors through the LIFE Institute at Ryerson University in Toronto and other venues. His forthcoming book is Talking Out of Turn: A Collection of Reviews, Interviews and Remembrances currently being assembled on Blogger. 

Tom Fulton was the host and producer of On the Arts for CJRT-FM in Toronto for 23 years, beginning in 1975.