I don’t know how/where/when Tom got the idea of driving a Corvette into a lake. (It’s certainly one of the questions I get asked, and we will include in the interviews as part of the Billy Jack documentary.) But as a 14 year-old who got to drive this 427 three-pack monster, this was a great and horrible day all in one.
The day was great because there was a possibility that I was going to get to do the stunt. David Roya rightfully wasn’t too sure about driving a car into a lake. But there weren’t any stuntmen on the crew. If David didn’t do it, I would. And so I told Tom over, and over, and over, and over, and over. As the day went on, it looked more and more like a teenage boy was going to get the opportunity of a lifetime: drive a very expensive (retail price around $6,000 - which was a lot in 1969) car into a lake. On purpose. With his parents watching. On film.
An added twist to all of this was the car was on loan from a Chevy dealer in Los Angeles. This was low-budget filmmaking at its most creative, so you scrounge and deal and work any angle possible, and somehow Delores had gotten a dealer to loan the Corvette for the shoot. Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the Corvette was towed back onto the lot (this submarine maneuver destroyed the engine).
But, in the end, David Roya did the stunt and pulled it off perfectly. Kudos, David, you dream killer. 
I just bought the 4 pack DVD collection of Billy Jack. My friend and I noticed that the corvette scene has changed. Billy used to say “Bernard, Bernard, Bernard will you ever learn?” and that is no longer a part of that scene. I watched it on youtube and it is also missing. I have watched his movies for years. Was this edited out or what? This was a classic line in a classic movie. What happened here?
Marie Delahanty-Stark