Tommy Rettig
Tommy Rettig
Thomas Noel Rettig, known as Tommy Rettig, was an American child actor, computer software engineer, and author. Rettig is remembered for portraying the character "Jeff Miller" in the first three seasons of CBS's Lassie television series, from 1954 to 1957, later seen in syndicated re-runs as Jeff's Collie. He also co-starred with another former child actor, Tony Dow, in the mid-1960s television teen soap opera Never Too Young and recorded the song by that title with the group The TR-4...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth10 December 1941
CountryUnited States of America
But anyway aside from alcohol and nicotine, LSD was the first drug l ever took.
I was just starting to get heavily into girls and cars and cigarettes and booze, and I wanted to have a normal chance to have fun.
Next night I got the call to fly home. That was it. It played a week and closed. That was my only starring role in a feature motion picture.
The Beatles had already been out for a few years, hair was growing longer and marijuana started to show up at parties and so on.
I just wanted to have a chance at the real world. Then I found out through working a series of straight jobs that straight jobs suck!
Acid wasn't getting a whole lot of bad press at the time, and as I saw the whole bad-press thing happen, I became aware that the government had done a whole lie on all the other benign drugs as well. It became clear to me that the government wanted no real drug education.
I wanted to have a normal childhood. Normal relationships.
It was the worst period of my life. I had all this gigantic acceptance as a kid, and all of a sudden there was this monumental rejection.
We each had to spend a week out at Lassie's ranch, and whoever got along best with the dog got the part.
There was this little shaggy dog on it, and Frank Weatherwax was working the dog. One day we were all sitting around, and Frank said, listen, my brother Rudd just got the rights back from MGM for Lassie, and said have your agent check into it. I did, and I went for a screen test.
Well, I went to school with Jan and Dean, Ryan O'Neal, some of the Beach Boys we all use to party together.
There's a big difference between somebody who does acid on weekends and somebody who takes downers every day.
I was totally devastated for four years in the mid '60s when l tried to buck the tide.
Yeah, dog was this man's best friend, for sure.