Tom Laughlin is an American actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, educator and political activist. Laughlin is best known for his series of Billy Jack

Billy Jack

Billy Jack is a 1971 action film. It is the second, and highest grossing, in a series of motion pictures centering on a character of the same name, played by Tom Laughlin who also directed and co-wrote the script. Filming began in Prescott, Arizona, in fall 1969, but the movie was not completed...

 films. He has been married to Delores Taylor

Delores Taylor

Delores Taylor is an American film actress, writer and producer, known for her roles in the Billy Jack films of the 1970s.-Life and career:...

 since 1954. Taylor has also co-produced and acted in all four of the Billy Jack films. His unique promotion of The Trial of Billy Jack

The Trial of Billy Jack

The Trial of Billy Jack is a 1974 film starring Delores Taylor and Tom Laughlin. It is the sequel to the 1971 film Billy Jack and the third film overall in the series. Although commercially successful, it was panned by critics.-Plot:...

 was a major influence on the way films are marketed.

In the early 1960s, Laughlin temporarily left his film career behind to start a Montessori

Montessori method

Montessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. Montessori education is practiced in an estimated 20,000 schools worldwide, serving children from birth to eighteen years old.-Overview:...

 preschool in Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

; it became the largest school of its kind in the United States.

In recent years he has become increasingly involved in politics, running for President of the United States three times (1992, 2004 and 2008).