Delores Taylor

Delores Taylor helped to usher in a new wave of independent filmmaking with writing, producing and co-starring roles alongside husband Tom Laughlin in the "Billy Jack" series of counterculture classics. Born in Winner, SD in 1932 to a postmaster general father and homemaker mother, Taylor won various local talents contests as a young singer but initially pursued a career as a graphic artist, studying the subject at the University of South Dakota and landing a job in the field at Taylor Electric. She also opened a Montessori school in Los Angeles which counted Marlon Brando's son Christian as a pupil. But as her husband Tom Laughlin's acting ambitions began to take shape, Taylor found herself becoming more involved in his film world. She worked as a costume designer on his morality tale "Like Father, Like Son" (1961), served as a producer on his low-budget drama "The Proper Time" (1962) and co-developed the Billy Jack character that would launch him to fame. The mysterious half-Indian Vietnam war veteran first appeared in "The Born Losers" (1967), an action film based on a real-life 1964 incident in which a gang of Hell's Angels were arrested for the rape of five teenage girls. Taylor produced the movie and also provided the narration, but four years later appeared in front of cameras for the first time when she played Jean Roberts, the founder of a hippie-themed Freedom school, in "Billy Jack" (1971). Co-writer Taylor received rave reviews and picked up a Golden Globe nomination for her performance, while despite various production and distribution problems the film itself went on to gross approximately $50 million on a budget of just $800,000. The character was further established as a counterculture icon in "The Trial of Billy Jack" (1974), a near three-hour epic which Taylor co-wrote, co-produced and starred in once more as Jean Roberts. A year later she again worked alongside husband Laughlin as executive producer on "The Master Gunfighter" (1975), a remake of Japanese cult classic "Goyokin" (1969). Triple threat Taylor then added "Billy Jack Goes to Washington" (1977), a loose adaptation of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), to her filmography. Sadly, the picture proved to be the final chapter of the Billy Jack series as "The Return of Billy Jack" (1986) was left uncompleted when Laughlin suffered a severe head injury during its filming. Taylor was repeatedly offered projects from other studios throughout her career, but once admitted she had no interest in working without her husband by her side and so retired from the industry altogether shortly after. In 2018, five years after Laughlin passed away from pneumonia, Taylor died from complications from dementia at her Los Angeles retirement community aged 85.