"The Streets of Laredo" in the episode. Rettig graduated in 1959 from University High School in Los Angeles. In the same year at the age of 18, he was cast as Pierre in the episode "The Ghost of Lafitte", set in New Orleans, of the ABC western series The Man from Blackhawk, starring Robert Rockwell as a roving insurance investigator. Actress Amanda Randolph was cast in the same episode, as Auntie Cotton. As a 19-year-old, Rettig had a prominent guest-starring role in the January 1961 Wagon Train episode "Weight of Command". Then in its fourth season on NBC, Wagon Train was the second highest-rated series that year on American network television. The Rettig played the part of a 16-year-old boy, Billy, who is traveling with his family on the wagon train. Although his father reluctantly allows his son to go on a buffalo hunt with assistant trailmaster Bill Hawks (Terry Wilson), Billy frets that his father doesn't think of him as being a man yet. When the hunters are attacked by a band of renegade Indians, they take refuge in an empty house. Hawks manages to escape, but wagonmaster Seth Adams (Ward Bond) makes the difficult decision not to attempt Billy's rescue, lest the entire wagon train be vulnerable to attack. Hawks, who had promised Billy he would be rescued, is outraged by the decision to abandon the besieged youth to his fate. When Billy manages to survive the Indian attack on his own, he earns his father's respect. Tommy guest starred in the television series Peter Gunn, as Kevin Daniels in the 1961 episode "I Know It's Murder". He played a young clairvoyant who hires Peter Gunn, Craig Stevens, to prevent the murder of his mother by her new husband Mark Eustis who was played by Hayden Rorke. In the 1962 episode "Davy's Friends" of another Western, the syndicated series Death Valley Days, Rettig played Joel Walter Robison, a fighter for Texas independence. In the storyline, Robison, called a "friend" of Davy Crockett, is sent out on a diversion, but quickly shows his military ability and is made a first lieutenant by Sam Houston. Stephan Chase played Sam Houston, and Russell Johnson was cast as Sergeant Tate, in this episode. From 1965 to 1966, Rettig co-starred with another former child actor, Tony Dow, in the ABC television soap opera for teens, Never Too Young. With the group "The TR-4",