After his Hollywood days, Tommy Kelly earned a Ph.D. from the Michigan State.[7] He worked as a high school teacher and counselor in Culver City and later as an administrator in the Orange County school system. He worked in Liberia as an administrator for the Peace Corps towards the end of the 1960s.[3] He afterwards served as superintendent of international schools in Liberia and Venezuela.[8] He eventually returned to the United States and worked in an important position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington.[9] Ever conscious of the value of education his thesis focused, among other things, on the relative advantages of children who were educated in U.S. military dependent schools abroad, “Dr. Kelly” served as an International Relations Advisor, in the International Organization Affairs (IOA) unit of the Office of International Cooperation and Development (OICD) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,[7] where he prepared positions for the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, with personal responsibility for OECD, and United States delegations to the governing boards of United Nations Organizations concerned with Food and Agriculture, a position he held until his retirement from Federal Service. He also held another teaching job in Washington D.C. in the 1980s.
So acting was only the beginning. Unlike many child stars, he went on to a useful and successful career.
The only child actors who succeeded are Shirley Temple, Tommy Kelly, Kirk Cameron, and a few others...a lot of others died to early...