Tommy Rettig
My mom was a Democrat and I was scared to death that she was gonna blow it. First I was going to hell with Monroe, and now to Republican hell with Nixon.Collection: Mom
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.
Yeah, dog was this man's best friend, for sure.
The kids put you on a pedestal. I didn't like it.
I wanted to have a normal childhood. Normal relationships.
So, in the last year, the whole cast sued for release from our contracts.
Yes, there was nothing else to do to get you high. I mean, there was, but white kids didn't hear about it.
I wanted to go to regular high school - it looked like a lot of fun.
Well, I went to school with Jan and Dean, Ryan O'Neal, some of the Beach Boys we all use to party together.
Once in a while there was some TV offer and I'd take it.
Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists.
I was still thought of as a kid actor even though I was in my mid twenties.
I was totally devastated for four years in the mid '60s when l tried to buck the tide.
There's a big difference between somebody who does acid on weekends and somebody who takes downers every day.
A lot of my friends were fooling around with drugs then.
I had always turned it down-to me, smoking pot was absolutely the worst thing in the world. I thought of it as an addiction, and all my friends who smoked it, I felt they really needed help.
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.
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.Collection: Dog
Marijuana. Boy, I thought that was just terrible. How could this great man do this to his life?Collection: Boys
I wanted to go to regular high school- it looked like a lot of fun.Collection: Fun
We each had to spend a week out at Lassie's ranch, and whoever got along best with the dog got the part.Collection: Dog