Tom McLoughlin [Interview]

The study of mime came when I was 19 years old and my rock & roll years were coming to a sad end. The music scene had changed for the worse.  Many of our legendary rock heroes had died of drugs. During this time I felt if I wanted to continue to be a front man of a band I needed to bring something unique to my performing style. Having had a few people ask me over the years IF I had studied mime after seeing my stage act, I decided to look into the art form. I studied under a local Hollywood teacher Richmond Sheppard. When Marcel Marceau come to L.A. to perform I sought him out. He invited me to come to Paris in 6 months cause he was opening a school. I suddenly just clicked into this new direction. I got the one and ONLY normal job in my life and worked my ass off to make as much money as I could..which wasn’t much. I left my girlfriend, family, and friends to go to France where I didn’t speak a word of French and knew no one. Of course I freaked out at first when I realized what I had done but then…I just changed. I guess the art, the culture, the devotion to the study of mime, dance, acrobatics, improv-comedy, and acting just totally took me over. I learned I had a gift for comedy. Writing skits and performing. I was truly the ‘starving artist in Paris’ living on almost no money, stealing food, and smoking cigarettes while drinking cafe and talking about changing the world through the arts. I returned to the U.S. a year later penniless. My girlfriend had left me, most of my friends didn’t know what to make of me, and I felt directionless. I took to the streets to perform with a hat down. Whatever I made that day was how I ate that night. I began teaching mime classes to earn extra money. I wrote more comedy material and began touring with stage shows. Woody Allen hired me as a robot on Sleeper. I did a lot of movie roles that required special physical movement in films and TV. Was featured in over 50 commercials. I created The L.A. Mime Company and we were regulars on the Dick Van Dyke series on NBC in the mid-70s, then Don Krishner’s Rock Concert. It was an wild and unexpected ride for many years. Then I earned an Emmy nomination for my writing on the Van Dyke & Company series. Around then I was making my transistion from performer to writer/director with the plan to make movies. My first film One Dark Night happened in 1981.

What was it like joining the franchise to make Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI?

My first reaction to the offer of writing and directing the SIXTH Friday the 13th after he was killed in the Final Chapter then it wasn’t even Jason who was the killer in part five was…”hell no!”

Now I’m labeled with starting the ‘Zombie Jason’ period of the series. Before mine he was a deformed child, then a vengeful killer hiding in the woods with his head covered by a potato sack. Part 3 in 3-D he found the hockey mask and he became more creative with his kills and more unstoppable of a killer. By The Final Chapter he was more violent, faster on his feet, and really aggressive to his teen victims especially if sex was involved.  The boy Tommy who finally chops him to death and kills him is set up to be the next Jason. A New Beginning led us to believe that Tommy was possibly the new Jason but then it turns out to be a pissed off ambulance driver and then Tommy in his room in the last scene leads us back to Tommy as next our Jason.

THAT’S a feckin’ looong story.  Check out http://www.reverbnation/thesloths65  to get a better explanation and some clips and our upcoming shows.  But in the simplest version…I was a rock singer from 1963 to 1969. As the original Sloths were disbanding they merged into a group The May Wines that I joined.  Both bands did exactly the same songs on the Sunset Strip in the 60s opening for The Doors, Love, The Seeds, even The Animals and so many other great bands bands. We were all in our mid-teens then. Eventually by the time the bad days hit; The Stones Altamont concert, the Charles Manson murders, the deaths of Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, on & on…we all thought the dream was over went other directions.

What else is in the future for The Sloths?

Who knows? We thought there was no future. Thought it would be ‘maybe’ our Wednesday Boys Night.  Like poker night.  Never thought we’d appeal to a younger music crowd. But they look our show band approach to the music. And I do some pretty wild antics on stage. Many nights I shock himself when I become this persona. But I LOVE every second of it.  I think of this turn in my career is doing a ‘Rob Zombie in reverse’.

Immediate answer to that…my son and daughter.  Hannah is a lovely young woman currently working on the TV series GLEE.  My son Shane graduated Chapman University/Dodge College of Film as a screenwriting major. He’s been working his way up the film production ladder taking every job he can land as he writes his screenplays. At this point he has far more credits then I’ll ever obtain and on some pretty cool projects like The Driver, The Dark Knight, and TV movies, series, cable shows, and Webisodes.

Every year I do something of a horror nature. It’s a must! Nancy has already decorated up the house and I usually create some ‘look’ out front. Haven’t figured out what yet. Sometimes Jason’s coffin and tombstone from part 6 is dragged out on Halloween. Both are the real thing. And both are heavy as hell to drag out. My friends and I always go to as many ‘haunted walk through’ places during October. We have some epic ones here in L.A. as well as the old stand-bys Universal Horror Nights, Knotts Scary Farm,  and the Haunted Ghost Ship of the Queen Mary. We used to create our own elaborate maze with a cast of frightening characters. It took weeks to construct and days to tear down. It was always the brainchild of Alan Banks who knows how to build a scary maze of thrills. Nothing is more fun then scaring willing victims in a live environment. Great adriniline rushes for all!

What was the last thing that made you smile?

Yesterday. Watching these young extremely talented dancers give their entire spirit and passion to the dance. To see all the months and years they have devoted to making their bodies defy gravity. To bend and contort into positions you’d think were impossible with the human body. And watching the intensity in their eyes as they willed themselves to achieve the unachievable. They have some much ahead of them and the possibility that some of them may actually full fill those dreams made me incredibly happy.  My cheeks were sore at the end of the day from how much I smiled.