Tommy Rettig

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Tommy Rettig (actually Thomas Noel Rettig , later Tom Rettig ; born December 10, 1941 in Jackson Heights , Queens , New York , † February 15, 1996 in Marina del Rey , California ) was an American actor and software developer . Rettig was best known as a child star through his role as Jeff Miller in the first four seasons of the television series Lassie from 1954 to 1957.

biography

Youth as a child star

Rettig's career began on the theater stage when he was six years old. He toured as Little Jake in the musical Annie Get Your Gun with Mary Martin . He then played in almost 20 feature films such as "A Weekend with Papa" (original title "Week-End with Father" , 1951), "A Heart of Gold" ( "So Big" , 1953) or " Fluß ohne Wiederkehr " ( " River of No Return ” , 1954) with Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum .

In the Oscar- nominated musical Die 5000 Fingers des Dr. In 1953 he had to play together with a dog. His performance appealed to the animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax, who suggested he apply for the lead role in the television series Lassie , for which Weatherwax trained the rough collies.

Rettig played Jeff for four years before he got out of his contract. He later said in interviews that he longed for a normal life as a teenager and criticized the way child stars were treated at the time.

New adult career

Rettig found the transition from child star to adulthood difficult. It should help him that he now called himself "Tom" instead of "Tommy". At 18 he married a 15-year-old and became a father the following year. Until 1965 he played several times in individual episodes of television series such as " Auf der Flucht ", " Peter Gunn " or " Im wilden Westen "; he also tried to earn his living with "normal" jobs such as selling pants or delivering flowers. He made headlines several times for problems with drugs and was convicted of growing marijuana on his farm. From 1967 to 1971 he had his own production company, Potpourri Productions , which shot more than a hundred television commercials and industrial films. He became a motivational speaker in the 1970s . In this job he came into contact with address lists and thus with databases , which led him to enter the computer industry in 1981 .

For the last 15 years of his life, Rettig was a well-known software developer and expert on database systems . He was one of the early employees of Ashton-Tate Corporation , specializing in dBASE , Clipper , FoxBASE, and FoxPro .

Rettig was seen again on television in 1991, with a guest appearance in the episode The Amazing Lassie of the television series "The New Lassie" alongside the second Lassie master Jon Provost . After his death of heart failure at the age of 54, Roger Clinton, Jr. and about ten other former child stars attended a memorial service in Marina del Rey . Rettig's ashes were scattered into the sea in front of his home.

Filmography (selection)

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personal data
SURNAME Rettig, Tommy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rettig, Thomas Noel (maiden name); Rettig, Tom
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor and software developer
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Jackson Heights , Queens, New York, USA
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1996
Place of death Marina del Rey , California, USA