I was totally devastated for four years in the mid '60s when l tried to buck the tide.
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.
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.
Marijuana. Boy, I thought that was just terrible. How could this great man do this to his life?
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.
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.
I wanted to go to regular high school- it looked like a lot of fun.
I wanted to have a normal childhood. Normal relationships.
We each had to spend a week out at Lassie's ranch, and whoever got along best with the dog got the part.
Well, I went to school with Jan and Dean, Ryan O'Neal, some of the Beach Boys we all use to party together.
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.
There's a big difference between somebody who does acid on weekends and somebody who takes downers every day.
Yeah, dog was this man's best friend, for sure.
I was still thought of as a kid actor even though I was in my mid twenties.
