Rod Serling

Rod Serling
Publicity photo of Serling, 1959
Born	Rodman Edward Serling (1924-12-25)December 25, 1924 Syracuse, New York, U.S.
Died	June 28, 1975(1975-06-28) (aged 50) Rochester, New York
Resting place	Lake View Cemetery in Interlaken, New York
Occupation	Screenwriter, TV producer, narrator
Nationality	American
Education	Bachelor of Arts in Literature
Alma mater	Antioch College
Period	1954–1975
Genre	Drama, speculative fiction, science fiction, horror fiction
Notable works	Patterns, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Planet of the Apes
Notable awards	Emmy, Hugo, Peabody, Golden Globe
Spouse	Carolyn Kramer ​ (m. 1948⁠–⁠1975)​
Children	2
Relatives	Robert J. Serling (brother)
Literature portal

Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling (December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975) was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science-fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen, and helped form television industry standards. He was known as the "angry young man" of Hollywood, clashing with television executives and sponsors over a wide range of issues including censorship, racism, and war.

Early life

Serling was born on Christmas Day (December 25) 1924 in Syracuse, New York to a Jewish family. He was the second of two sons born to Esther (née Cooper) and Samuel Lawrence Serling. Serling's father had worked as a secretary and amateur inventor before having children, but took on his father-in-law's profession as a grocer to earn a steady income. Sam Serling later took up the trade of butcher after the Great Depression forced the store to close. Serling's mother was a homemaker.

Serling spent most of his youth 70 miles south of Syracuse in the city of Binghamton after his family moved there in 1926. His parents encouraged his talents as a performer from the start. Sam Serling built a small stage in the basement, where Rod often put on plays (with or without neighborhood children). Rod's older brother, author Robert, recalled that, at the age of six or seven, Serling entertained himself for hours by acting out dialogue from pulp magazines or movies he had seen. Rod often talked to people around him without waiting for their answers. On a two-hour-long trip from Binghamton to Syracuse, the rest of the family remained silent to see if Rod would notice their lack of participation. He did not, talking nonstop through the entire car ride.

In elementary school, Serling was seen as the class clown and dismissed by many of his teachers as a lost cause. However, his seventh-grade English teacher, Helen Foley, encouraged him to enter the school's public speaking extracurriculars. He joined the debate team and was a speaker at his high school graduation. He began writing for the school newspaper where, according to journalist Gordon Sander, Serling "established a reputation as a social activist".

Serling as a senior in high school, 1943

He was also interested in sports, and excelled at tennis and table tennis. When he attempted to join the varsity football team, he was told he was too small at 5 feet 4 inches tall.

Serling was interested in radio and writing at an early age. He listened to various radio programs, especially thrillers with a fantasy or horror feel. Arch Oboler and Norman Corwin were two of his favorite writers. He also "... did some staff work at a Binghamton radio station ... tried to write ... but never had anything published." He was accepted into college during his senior year of high school. However, the United States was involved in World War II at the time, and Serling decided to enlist, rather than start college, immediately after he graduated from Binghamton Central High School in 1943.

Military service

As editor of his high school newspaper, Serling encouraged his fellow students to support the war effort. He wanted to leave school before graduation to join the fight, but his civics teacher talked him into graduating. "War is a temporary thing," Gus Youngstrom told him. "It ends. An education doesn't. Without your degree, where will you be after the war?" Serling enlisted into the U.S. Army the morning after his high school graduation, following his brother Robert.

Serling began his military career in 1943 at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, under General Raymond "Joe" Swing and Col. Orin D. "Hard Rock" Haugen and served in the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 11th Airborne Division.

Over the next year of paratrooper training, Serling and others took to boxing as a way to vent aggression. He competed as a flyweight, and had 17 bouts, rising to the second round of the division finals before being knocked out. He was remembered for berserker style and for "getting his nose broken in his first bout and again in last bout." He tried his hand at the Golden Gloves, with little success.

On April 25, 1944, Serling received his overseas orders and saw that he was headed west through California. He knew that he was headed to fight the Japanese rather than the Nazis. This disappointed him, as he had hoped to help combat Hitler. On May 5, his division headed into the Pacific, landing in New Guinea, where it would be held in reserve for a few months.

Men and equipment on Leyte beachhead, October 20, 1944

In November 1944, his division first saw combat, on the Philippine island of Leyte. The 11th Airborne Division would not be used as paratroopers, however, but as light infantry after the Battle of Leyte Gulf. It helped mop up after the six divisions that had gone ashore earlier.

For a variety of reasons, Serling was transferred to the 511th's demolition platoon (nicknamed "The Death Squad" for its high casualty rate). According to Sergeant Frank Lewis, leader of the demolitions squad, "He screwed up somewhere along the line. Apparently he got on someone's nerves." Lewis also judged that Serling was not suited to be a field soldier. "... [H]e didn't have the wits or aggressiveness required for combat." At one point, Lewis, Serling, and others were in a firefight, trapped in a foxhole. As they waited for darkness, Lewis noticed that Serling had not reloaded any of his extra magazines. Serling sometimes went exploring on his own against orders, and got lost.

Serling's time in Leyte shaped his writing and political views for the rest of his life. He saw death every day while in the Philippines, at the hands of his enemies and his allies, and through freak accidents such as that which killed another extroverted Jewish private named Melvin Levy. Levy was delivering a comic monologue for the platoon as it rested under a palm tree when a food crate was dropped from a plane above, decapitating him. Serling led the funeral services for Levy and placed a Star of David over his grave. Serling later set several of his scripts in the Philippines, and used the unpredictability of death as a theme in much of his writing.

Serling returned from the successful mission in Leyte with two wounds (including one to his kneecap), but neither kept him from combat when General Douglas MacArthur used the paratroopers for their typical purpose on February 3, 1945. Colonel Haugen led the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment as it landed on Tagaytay Ridge, met up with the 188th Glider Infantry Regiment and marched into Manila. It met minimal resistance until it reached the city, where Vice Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi had arranged his 17,000 troops behind a maze of traps and guns and ordered them to fight to the death. During the next month, Serling's unit battled block-by-block for control of Manila.

When portions of the city were taken from Japanese control, local civilians sometimes showed their gratitude by throwing parties and hosting banquets. During one of these parties, Serling and his comrades were fired upon, resulting in many soldier and civilian deaths. Serling, still a private after three years, caught the attention of Sergeant Lewis when he ran into the line of fire to rescue a performer who had been onstage when the artillery started firing.

As it moved in on Iwabuchi's stronghold, Serling's regiment suffered a 50% casualty rate, with over 400 men killed. Serling was wounded and three comrades were killed by shrapnel from rounds fired at his roving demolition team by an antiaircraft gun. He was sent to New Guinea to recover, but soon returned to Manila to finish "cleaning up".

Serling's final assignment was as part of the occupation force in Japan. During his military service, Private Serling was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Philippine Liberation Medal.

Serling's combat experience affected him deeply and influenced much of his writing. It left him with nightmares and flashbacks for the rest of his life. He said, "I was bitter about everything and at loose ends when I got out of the service. I think I turned to writing to get it off my chest."

Postwar life, education, and family

After being discharged from the Army in 1946, Serling worked at a rehabilitation hospital while recovering from his wounds. His knee continued to give him trouble for years, and in subsequent years, his wife became used to the sound of him falling down the stairs when it buckled under his weight.

Once he was fit enough, he used the federal G.I. bill's educational benefits and disability payments to enroll in the physical education program at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He had been accepted to Antioch (his brother's alma mater) while in high school. His interests led him to the theater department and then to broadcasting. He changed his major to Literature and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950. "I was kind of mixed up and restless, and I kind of liked their work-for-a-term, go-to-school-for-a-term set-up," he recounted.

Serling family, 1959, his wife Carol in left photo, his daughters in right

As part of his studies, Serling became active in the campus radio station, work experience which was often useful in his future career. He wrote, directed, and acted in many radio programs on campus, then around the state, as part of his work study. Here he met his fellow student and future wife, Carolyn Louise "Carol" Kramer. At first, she refused to date him because of his campus reputation as a "ladies man", but she eventually changed her mind. He converted from Judaism to Unitarianism in college, which allowed him to marry Kramer on July 31, 1948. They had two daughters, Jodi and Anne.

Carol Serling's maternal grandmother, Louise Taft Orton Caldwell, had a summer home on Cayuga Lake in Interlaken, New York, which the newlyweds used as a honeymoon destination. The Serling family continued to use this house annually throughout Rod's life, missing only two summers in the years when his daughters were born.

For extra money in his college years, Serling worked part-time testing parachutes for the United States Army Air Forces. According to his radio-station coworkers, he received $50 for each successful jump and had once been paid $500 (half before and half if he survived) for a hazardous test. His last test jump was a few weeks before his wedding. He made $1000 testing a newly invented jet ejection seat. Serling survived the test, but barely. Serling later told friends three other men had been killed before he made the test.

Career

Radio

Serling volunteered at WNYC in New York as an actor and writer in the summer of 1946. The next year, he worked at that station as a paid intern in his Antioch work study program. He then took odd jobs in other radio stations in New York and Ohio. "I learned 'time', writing for a medium that is measured in seconds," Serling later said of his early experiences.

While attending college, Serling worked at the Antioch Broadcasting System’s radio workshop and was managing the station within a couple of years. He then took charge of full-scale radio productions at Antioch which were heard on WJEM, Springfield. He wrote and directed the programs, and acted in them when needed. He created the entire output for the 1948–1949 school year. With one exception (an adaptation), all the writing that year was his original work.

While in college, Serling won his first accolade as a writer. The radio program Dr. Christian had started an annual script writing contest eight years earlier. Thousands of scripts were sent in annually, but very few could be produced. Serling won a trip to New York City and $500 for his radio script "To Live a Dream." He and his new wife attended the awards broadcast on May 18, 1949, where he and the other winners were interviewed by the star of Dr. Christian, Jean Hersholt. One of the other winners that day was Earl Hamner, Jr., who had also earned prizes in previous years. Later, Hamner wrote scripts for Serling's The Twilight Zone.

In addition to earning $45 to $50 a week at the college radio station, Serling attempted to make a living selling freelance scripts to radio programs, but the industry at that time was involved in many lawsuits, which affected willingness to take on new writers (some who had scripts rejected would often hear a similar plot produced, claim their work had been stolen and sue for recompense). Serling was rejected for reasons such as "heavy competition," "this script lacks professional quality," and "not what our audience prefers to listen to."

In the autumn of 1949, Martin Horrell of Grand Central Station (a radio program known for romances and light dramas) rejected one of Serling's scripts about boxing because his mostly female listeners "have told us in no uncertain terms that prize fight stories aren’t what they like most." Horrell advised, "that the script would be far better for sight than for sound only, because in any radio presentation, the fights are not seen. Perhaps this is a baby you should try on some of the producers of television shows."

Realizing the boxing story was not right for Grand Central Station, Serling submitted a lighter piece called Hop Off the Express and Grab a Local, which became his first nationally broadcast piece on September 10, 1949. His Dr. Christian script aired on November 30 of that year.

Serling began his employed professional writing career in 1950, when he earned $75 a week as a network continuity writer for WLW radio in Cincinnati, Ohio. While at WLW, he continued to freelance. He sold several radio and TV scripts to WLW's parent company, Crosley Broadcasting Corporation. After selling the scripts, Serling had no further involvement with them. They were sold by Crosley to local stations across the U.S.

Serling submitted an idea of a weekly radio show in which the ghosts of a young boy and girl killed in World War II would look through train windows and comment on day-to-day human life as it moved around the country. This idea was changed significantly, but was produced from October 1950 to February 1951 as Adventure Express, a drama about a girl and boy who travel by train with their uncle. Each week they find adventure in a new town and get involved with the locals.

Other radio programs Serling wrote scripts for include Leave it to Kathy, Our America, and Builders of Destiny. During production of these, he became acquainted with a voice actor, Jay Overholts, who later became a regular on The Twilight Zone.

Serling said of his time as a staff writer for radio: "From a writing point of view, radio ate up ideas that might have put food on the table for weeks at a future freelancing date. The minute you tie yourself down to a radio or TV station, you write around the clock. You rip out ideas, many of them irreplaceable. They go on and consequently can never go on again. And you've sold them for $50 a week. You can't afford to give away ideas—they're too damn hard to come by. If I had it to do over, I wouldn't staff-write at all. I'd find some other way to support myself while getting a start as a writer."

Serling believed radio was not living up to its potential, later saying: "Radio, in terms of ... drama, dug its own grave. It had aimed downward, had become cheap and unbelievable, and had willingly settled for second best." He opined that there were very few radio writers who would be remembered for their literary contributions.

Television

I think Rod would have been one of the first to say he hit the new industry, television, at exactly the right time. Though such a success ahead, he chose to become a garbage man. The first job he got out of school was as continuity writer at (radio station) WLW in Cincinnati. He worked there for over a year before he could free-lance. At that point, he was really working on television scripts. [I]n 1951 and 1952, the new industry was grabbing up a lot of material and needed it. It was a very propitious time to be graduating from school and getting ready to find a profession.

—Carol Serling, Los Angeles Times, Interview.

Serling moved from radio to television, as a writer for WKRC-TV in Cincinnati. His duties included writing testimonial advertisements for dubious medical remedies or scripts for a comedy duo. He continued at WKRC after graduation and, amidst the mostly dreary day-to-day work, also created a series of scripts for a live TV program called The Storm, as well as for other anthology dramas (a format which was in demand by New York-based networks). Following a full day of classes (or, in later years, work), he spent evenings on his own, writing. He sent manuscripts to publishers and received forty rejection slips during these early years.

In 1950, Serling hired Blanche Gaines as an agent. His radio scripts received more rejections, so he began rewriting them for television. Whenever a script was rejected by one program, he would resubmit it to another, eventually finding a home for many in either radio or television.

As Serling's college years ended, his scripts began to sell. He continued to write for television and eventually left WKRC to become a full-time freelance writer. He recalled: "Writing is a demanding profession and a selfish one. And because it is selfish and demanding, because it is compulsive and exacting, I didn't embrace it. I succumbed to it."

According to his wife, Serling "just up and quit one day, during the winter of 1952, about six months before our first daughter Jody was born — though he was also doing some freelancing and working on a weekly dramatic show for another Cincinnati station." He and his family moved to Connecticut in early 1953. Here he made a living by writing for the live dramatic anthology shows that were prevalent at the time, including Kraft Television Theatre, Appointment with Adventure and Hallmark Hall of Fame. By the end of 1954, his agent convinced him he needed to move to New York, "where the action is."

Author Marc Scott Zicree, who spent years researching for his book, The Twilight Zone Companion, noted: "Sometimes the situations were clichéd, the characters two-dimensional, but always there was at least some search for an emotional truth, some attempt to make a statement on the human condition."

Gaining fame

In 1955, the nationwide Kraft Television Theatre televised a program based on Serling's 72nd script. To Serling, it was just another script, and he missed the first live broadcast. He and his wife hired a babysitter for the night and told her "no one would call because we had just moved to town. And the phone just started ringing and didn't stop for years!" The title of this episode was Patterns, and it soon changed his life.

Ed Begley, Everett Sloane and Richard Kiley in Patterns (1955)

Patterns dramatized the power struggle between a veteran corporate boss running out of ideas and energy and the bright, young executive being groomed to take his place. Instead of firing the loyal employee, and risk tarnishing his own reputation, the boss enlists him into a campaign to push aside his competition. Serling modeled the main character on his former commander, Colonel Oren Haugen.

The New York Times critic Jack Gould called the show "one of the high points in the TV medium's evolution" and said "[f]or sheer power of narrative, forcefulness of characterization and brilliant climax, Mr. Serling's work is a creative triumph." Robert Lewis Shayon stated in the Saturday Review, "in the years I have been watching television I do not recall being so engaged by a drama, nor so stimulated to challenge the haunting conclusions of an hour's entertainment." The episode was a hit with the audience as well, and a second live show was staged due to popular demand one month later. During the time between the two shows, Kraft executives negotiated with people from Hollywood over the rights to Patterns. Newspapers announced Patterns would be rebroadcast, but then stated the show might be unavailable if the rights were sold before then.

Immediately following the original broadcast of Patterns, Serling was inundated with permanent job offers, congratulations and requests for novels, plays and television or radio scripts. He quickly sold many of his earlier, lower-quality works and watched in dismay as they were published. Critics expressed concern that he was not living up to his promise and began to doubt he was able to recreate the quality of writing that Patterns had shown.

Serling then wrote Requiem for a Heavyweight for the Playhouse 90 TV series in 1956, again gaining praise from critics.

In the autumn of 1957, the Serling family moved to California. When television was new, shows aired live, but as studios began to tape their shows, the business moved from the east coast to the west. Serling would live in California for much of his life, but kept property in Binghamton and Cayuga Lake as retreats for when he needed time alone.

Corporate censorship

The early years of television often saw sponsors working as editors and censors. Serling was often forced to change his scripts after corporate sponsors read them and found something they felt was too controversial. They were wary of anything they thought might make them look bad to buyers, so references to many contemporary social issues were omitted, as were references to anything that might compete commercially with a sponsor. For instance, the line "Got a match?" was deleted because one of the sponsors for Requiem For A Heavyweight was Ronson lighters.

A New York Times television reviewer added this editorial note at the end of a glowing review for A Town Has Turned to Dust, a show about racism and bigotry in a small Southwestern town: "'Playhouse 90' and Mr. Serling had to fight executive interference ... before getting their play on the air last night. The theater people of Hollywood have reason to be proud of their stand in the viewers' behalf."

Frustrated by seeing his scripts divested of political statements and ethnic identities (and having the Chrysler Building removed from a script sponsored by Ford), Serling decided the only way to avoid such artistic interference was to create his own show. In an interview with Mike Wallace, he said, "I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to have to battle sponsors and agencies. I don't want to have to push for something that I want and have to settle for second best. I don't want to have to compromise all the time, which in essence is what a television writer does if he wants to put on controversial themes."

Serling submitted The Time Element to CBS, intending it to be a pilot for his new weekly show, The Twilight Zone. Instead, CBS used the science fiction script for a new show produced by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, in 1958. The story concerns a man who has vivid nightmares of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The man goes to a psychiatrist and, after the session, the twist ending (a device which Serling became known for using) reveals the "patient" had died at Pearl Harbor, and the psychiatrist was the one actually having the vivid dreams. The episode received so much positive fan response that CBS agreed to let Serling go ahead with his pilot for The Twilight Zone

The Storm

Serling created a local television show in Cincinnati on WKRC-TV, "The Storm". A copy of an episode is located in the Cincinnati Museum Center Historical Cincinnati Library on videotape.

The Twilight Zone

Main articles: The Twilight Zone and The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)

Serling working on his script with a dictating machine, 1959

On October 2, 1959, the classic Twilight Zone series, created by Serling, premiered on CBS.

For this series, Serling fought hard to get and maintain creative control. He hired scriptwriters whom he respected (such as Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont). In an interview, Serling said the show's science fiction format would not be controversial with sponsors, network executives or the general public and would escape censorship, unlike the earlier Playhouse 90.

Serling drew on his own experience for many episodes, frequently about boxing, military life, and airplane pilots. The Twilight Zone incorporated his social views on racial relations, somewhat veiled in the science fiction and fantasy elements of the shows. Occasionally, the point was quite blunt, such as in the episode "I Am the Night—Color Me Black", in which racism and hatred causes a dark cloud to form in the American South, before spreading across the world. Many Twilight Zone stories reflected his views on gender roles, featuring quick-thinking, resilient women as well as shrewish, nagging wives.

The Twilight Zone aired for five seasons (the first three presented half-hour episodes, the fourth hour-long episodes and the fifth returned to the half-hour format). It won many TV and drama awards, and drew much critical acclaim for Serling and his co-workers. Though it had a loyal fanbase, The Twilight Zone drew only moderate ratings and was twice canceled and revived. After five years and 156 episodes (92 written by Serling), he grew weary of the series. In 1964, he decided to not oppose its third and final cancellation.

Serling sold the rights to The Twilight Zone to CBS. His wife later claimed he did this partly because he believed his own studio would never recoup the production costs of the programs, which frequently went over budget.

A Carol For Another Christmas

A Carol for Another Christmas was a 1964 American television movie, scripted by Rod Serling as a modernization of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and a plea for global cooperation between nations. It was telecast only once, on December 28, 1964. The only TV movie ever directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this was the film in which Peter Sellers gave his first performance after suffering a series of near-fatal heart attacks in the wake of his marriage to Britt Ekland. Sellers portrayed a demigod in an apocalyptic Christmas. Sterling Hayden, who costarred with Sellers in Dr. Strangelove earlier that year, was also featured.

The cast included Percy Rodriguez, Eva Marie Saint, Ben Gazzara, Barbara Ann Teer, James Shigeta and Britt Ekland. Henry Mancini wrote the theme music, which was recorded for his 1966 holiday LP, A Merry Mancini Christmas.

The film is not commercially available, but it can be seen at the Paley Center for Media in New York and Los Angeles and the Film and Television Archive at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Turner Classic Movies telecast A Carol for Another Christmas for the first time in 48 years, on December 16 and 22, 2012. TCM aired it again on December 19 and 20, 2013.

Night Gallery

Main article: Night Gallery

In 1969, NBC aired a Serling-penned pilot for a new series, Night Gallery. Set in a dimly lit museum after hours, the pilot film featured Serling (as on-camera host) playing the curator, who introduced three tales of the macabre, unveiling canvases that would appear in the subsequent story segments. Its brief first season (containing only six episodes) was rotated with three other shows (called the Four in One) airing in the same time slot. The series focused more on Gothic horror and the occult than The Twilight Zone did.

No longer wanting the burden of an executive position, Serling sidestepped an offer to retain creative control of content, a decision he would come to regret. Although discontented with some of the scripts and creative choices of producer Jack Laird, Serling continued to submit his work and ultimately wrote over a third of the series' scripts. By season three, however, many of his contributions were being rejected or heavily altered. His complaints ignored, the disgruntled host dismissed the show as "Mannix in a cemetery". Night Gallery was cancelled in 1973.

Other television

After The Twilight Zone was cancelled, Serling wrote an unsuccessful western television series called The Loner, which ran from the fall of 1965 to April 1966. CBS asked Serling to have more action and less character interaction. He refused to comply, even though the show had received poor reviews and low ratings.

In a stylistic departure from his earlier work, Serling briefly hosted the first version of the game show Liar's Club in 1969.

In 1970, Serling was signed to host and narrate a 30-minute weekly series for Los Angeles television station KNXT, called Rod Serling's Wonderful World of .... He presented stylized essays on subjects such as gluttony, propaganda, sloth and greed. The series ran for 13 weeks.

In the early 1970s, Serling appeared in television commercials for Ford and the Japanese automaker Mazda, during the time they were promoting vehicles for the U.S. market powered with a rotary engine.

Writing prose

Writing prose was difficult for Serling. Several of his short stories were rewrites of scripts which had already been produced, but he wrote original works as well.

In his book, The Evolution of the Weird Tale, S. T. Joshi titled his chapter on Serling "The Moral Supernatural" and spoke of how difficult it is to categorize Serling's writings. He looked to the three dozen prose pieces Serling had published as a basis for literary analysis. His overview of Serling's writing says, "If there is anything that unites the whole of Serling's works — whether it be short stories or film scripts, whether it be fantastic or mainstream — it is an abiding concern with human feeling."

Joshi compares an original script version of "Walking Distance" to a short story version of the same work, then to the finalized script. The scripts utilize visual images to show the locations, what the characters look like and emotions they are experiencing — in comparison, Serling fleshes these all out in the short story with strong nuances, inner dialogue and elaborate memories that are not easily translated to the screen. Each is successful in its medium although each includes pieces that are not found in the other. Joshi comments that Serling has used pacing well, each correct for the medium and that "in spite of Serling's own doubts on the matter — he mastered the short story technique in every way."

Other radio

The Zero Hour

Suited man in his forties, with dark hair, thick eyebrows, and an intense expression

Serling c. 1974, promoting The Zero Hour

Serling returned to radio late in his career with The Zero Hour (also known as Hollywood Radio Theater) in 1973. The drama anthology series featured tales of mystery, adventure and suspense, airing in stereo for two seasons. Serling hosted the program and wrote some of the scripts.

Originally placed into syndication on September 3, 1973, the series was picked up by the Mutual Broadcasting System in December of that year. The original format featured five-part dramas broadcast Monday through Friday with the story coming to a conclusion on Friday. Including commercials, each part was approximately 30 minutes long. Mutual affiliates could broadcast the series in any time slot that they wished.

In 1974, still airing five days a week, the program changed to a full story in a single 30-minute installment with the same actor starring throughout the week in all five programs. That format was employed from late April 1974 to the end of the series on July 26, 1974.

Fantasy Park

Serling's final radio performance, which he recorded just a few weeks before his death, was even more unusual: Fantasy Park was a 48-hour-long rock concert aired by nearly 200 stations over Labor Day weekend in 1975. The program, produced by KNUS in Dallas, featured performances by dozens of rock stars of the day. It was also completely 'imaginary', a "theatre-of-the-mind for the 70s", as producer Beau Weaver put it, using record albums recorded live-in-concert, plus crowd noise and other sound effects. KNUS General Manager Bart McLendon recruited Serling (his old teacher) to record the host segments, bumpers and custom promos and television spots.

Serling wrote the disclaimers, which aired each hour:

"Hello, this is Rod Serling and welcome back to Fantasy Park—the crowds here today are unreal."

"This is Fantasy Park—the greatest live concert—never held."

Teaching

Serling kept his schedule full. When he was not writing, promoting, or producing his work, he was often seen speaking on college campuses all over the country. He would also teach week-long classes on film in which students would watch films and then critique them. In the political climate of the 1960s, he often felt a stronger rapport with older students in his evening classes than he did with the youth of the day.

By the fourth season of Twilight Zone, Serling was exhausted and turned much of the writing over to a trusted stable of writers, writing only seven episodes. In an attempt to take a break and clear his mind, he took a one-year teaching job as writer in residence at Antioch College in Ohio. He taught classes in the 1962–63 school year on writing, drama, and a survey course covering the "social and historical implications of the media." He used this time to teach as well as work on a new screenplay, Seven Days in May.

Later he also taught at Ithaca College from the late 1960s until his death in 1975. He was also one of the first guest teachers at the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College in Hollywood, California. Audio recordings of some of his lectures there are included as bonus features on some Twilight Zone home video editions.

Themes

No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity ... and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves.

— Gene Roddenberry

According to his wife, Rod Serling often said that "the ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic." This philosophy can be seen in his writing. Some themes appear again and again in his writing, many of which are concerned with war and politics. Another common theme is equality among all humans.

Antiwar activism

Serling's experiences as a soldier left him with strong opinions about the use of military force. He was an outspoken antiwar activist, especially during the Vietnam War. He supported antiwar politicians, most notably Eugene McCarthy in his presidential bid.

The Rack is an example of Serling's using television to speak his mind on political issues. It tells the story of an army captain charged with collaborating with the North Koreans. The New York Times reviewer, J. P. Shanley, called it "controversial and compelling". Serling tackled a question that was much in the media at the time: should veterans be charged with a crime if they cooperated with the enemy while under duress? In this courtroom drama the accused is put on trial for helping the enemy by urging fellow prisoners of war to cooperate with their captors. Serling offers many valid arguments on behalf of both the defense and the prosecution. Each has a strong case, but in the end, the Captain is found guilty. There is no Serling narration to conclude the drama, as he had become famous for in The Twilight Zone — instead, the audience is left to make their own conclusions after the verdict has been rendered.

No Christmas This Year was a script written early in Serling's career, around 1950, but was never produced. It told of a place that no longer celebrated Christmas, although none of the residents know why it has been canceled. Meanwhile, in the North Pole, the audience sees Santa Claus dealing with striking elves. Rather than creating toys and candy, the North Pole manufactures a diversity of bombs and offensive gases. Santa has been shot at on his route, and an elf was hit by shrapnel.

24 Men to a Plane recounts Serling's first combat airdrop into the area around Manila in 1945. The drop became a fiasco after the jumpmaster in the first plane dropped his men too early, causing every subsequent plane to drop in synchronization with the mistake.

Racial equality

A Town Has Turned to Dust received a positive review from critic Jack Gould, who was known for being straightforward to the point of being harsh in his reviews. He called A Town Has Turned to Dust, "a raw tough and at the same time deeply moving outcry against prejudice." Set in a Southwestern town suffering a deep drought, poverty and despair turn racial tensions deadly when the ineffectual sheriff is unable to stand against the town. A young Mexican boy is lynched, and the town as a whole is to blame. A second lynching is in the works after a series of events leads again to the town turning against the Mexicans. This time, the sheriff stands strong, and the first boy's brother is saved, even as the town is not. "Mr. Serling incorporated his protest against prejudice in vivid dialogue and sound situations. He made his point that hate for a fellow being leads only to the ultimate destruction of the bigoted."

Serling took his 1972 screenplay for the film The Man from the Irving Wallace novel of the same title. The black senator from New Hampshire, and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, played by James Earl Jones, assumes the U.S. Presidency by succession.

Death

As long as they talk about you, you're not really dead, as long as they speak your name, you continue. A legend doesn't die, just because the man dies.

—From "A Game Of Pool," written by George Clayton Johnson, aired on The Twilight Zone, October 31, 1961

A memorial in honor of Serling in his home town of Binghamton

"In early March [1966] Serling traveled to Washington, DC," wrote his biographer Joel Engel, "to debrief the State Department on his trip to the Orient and to address the local chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. ... Shortly after the speech, while driving with his [older] brother [Robert] to [Robert's nearby] apartment, where he stayed, Serling began to complain of chest pains and asked to be taken to the hospital. ... [Robert] called his personal physician, who checked Serling into Washington Hospital Center for tests and observation. Rumors circulated that he had suffered a heart attack, and within twenty-four hours, newspapers, television, and radio all over the country reported news of his grave illness. In truth, he experienced again only extreme exhaustion, aggravated by some mild form of food poisoning. The diagnosis, for at least the second time in his life, was greater relaxation."

On May 3, 1975, Serling suffered a minor heart attack and was hospitalized. He spent two weeks at Tompkins County Community Hospital before being released. A second heart attack two weeks later forced doctors to agree that open-heart surgery, though considered risky at the time, was in order. The ten-hour-long procedure was carried out on June 26, but Serling suffered a heart attack on the operating table and died two days later at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. He was 50 years old. His funeral took place on July 2.

A memorial was held in Cornell University's Sage Chapel on July 7, 1975. Speakers at the Memorial included his daughter, Anne, and the Reverend John F. Hayward.

Legacy

Television

Sam Jaffe and Jack Albertson in Serling's 1976 posthumous television special, The Sad and Lonely Sundays, an episode of the abandoned series The Oath

Rod Serling began his career when television was a new medium. The first public viewing of an all-electric television was presented by inventor Philo Farnsworth at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on August 25, 1934, when Rod was only nine years old. Commercial television officially started on July 1, 1941. At the time, fewer than seven thousand TV sets could be found in America, and very few of those were in private homes. Only five months later the U.S. entered World War II, and the television business was put on hold until war's end, as many of the sets were confiscated by the government and re-purposed to train air-raid wardens. After World War II ended, money began flowing towards the new medium of television, coinciding with the beginning of Serling's writing career. Early programming consisted of newsreels, sporting events and what would be called public-access television cable TV today. It wasn't until 1948 that filmed dramas were first shown, beginning with a show called Public Prosecutor. Serling began having serious dramas produced in 1950 and is given credit as one of the first to write scripts specifically for the medium of television. As such, he is said to have helped legitimize television drama.

The format of writing for television was in flux in the beginning but eventually settled into a pattern in which time was set aside for a commercial break on the quarter hour. Writers, Serling included, were forced to write around a break in the action. Serling's response to this convention was, "How can you put out a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? No dramatic art form should be dictated and controlled by men whose training and instincts are cut of an entirely different cloth. The fact remains that these gentlemen sell consumer goods, not an art form." Throughout his career Serling helped to mold the future of television.

Writing for multiple media

As early as 1955 Jack Gould from the New York Times commented on the close ties that were then being created between television and the big screen by writers. Serling was one of the first to exploit crossover between media by turning his early television successes, Patterns and The Rack into full-length movie productions. Up to that time, many established writers were often unwilling to write for television because the medium was often only viewed once then shunted into a vault, never to be seen again.

Beginning of the rerun

After the first showing of Patterns, the studio received such positive feedback that it produced a repeat performance, the first time a television program had been shown again at the behest of the audience. As well, although successful shows had sometimes been recreated after two years or more, this was the first time a show was recreated exactly — with the same cast and crew — as it had been originally created. The second live performance, only a month later, was equally successful and inspired New York Times critic Jack Gould to write an essay on the use of re-plays within the tele-play format. He stated that Patterns was a prime example of a drama that should be seen more than once, whereas a single airing was the norm for television shows of the day. Sponsors believed that creating new shows every week would assure them the largest possible audience, and so they purchased a new script for each night. Gould suggested that as new networks were opened and the viewers were given more choices, the percentage of viewers would spread out among the offerings. Patterns was proof that a second showing would garner more viewers because those who missed the first showing could then watch it the second showing, adding to the total viewers and reaching a larger audience for sponsors.

Effects on popular culture

During his lifetime

In December 1966, the made-for-television movie The Doomsday Flight aired. The fictional plot concerned an airplane with a bomb aboard. If the plane landed without the ransom money being paid, the aircraft would explode. The bomb was set with an altitude trigger so if the plane dropped below four thousand feet, it would detonate. The show was one of the highest rated of the television season, but both Serling and his brother Robert, a technical advisor on the project (a specialist in aviation), regretted making the film. After the film was aired, a rash of copy-cats phoned in ransom demands to most of the largest airlines. Serling was truly devastated by what his script had encouraged. He told reporters who flocked to interview him, "I wish to Christ that I had written a stagecoach drama starring John Wayne instead."

After being knocked out in a 1961 boxing match Archie Moore said, "Man, I was in the Twilight Zone!"

Also in 1961, the FCC chairman Newton N. Minow gave a speech in which he called television programing a "vast wasteland", citing The Twilight Zone as one of only a few exceptions.

Continuing effects

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind... a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination—your next stop, the Twilight Zone!

—Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone, Introduction

Serling is indelibly woven into modern popular culture due to the popularity of his hit television show The Twilight Zone. Even youth of today can hum the theme song, and the title itself is a synonym for all things unexplainable. Serling's widow, Carol, maintains that the cult status that now surrounds both her husband and his shows continues to be a surprise, "as I'm sure it would have been to him." "It won't go away. It keeps bobbing up...Each year, I think, well, that's it—and then something else turns up."

The Twilight Zone has been rerun, re-created and re-imagined since soon after it went off the air in 1964. It has been released in comic book form, as a magazine, a film, and two additional television series from 1985 to 1989 and again from 2002 to 2003. In 1988, J. Michael Straczynski scripted Serling's outline "Our Selena Is Dying" for the 1980s Twilight Zone revival.

Even those who have never seen a black and white episode of the original Twilight Zone are now able to read some of Serling's work in graphic novel format. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone is a series of adaptations by Mark Kneece and Rich Ellis based on original scripts written by Serling.

The Twilight Zone is not the only Serling work to reappear throughout the years. In 1994, Rod Serling's Lost Classics released two never-before-seen works that Carol Serling found in her garage. The first was an outline called "The Theatre" that Richard Matheson expanded. The second was a complete script written by Serling titled "Where the Dead Are".

More than 30 years after his death, Serling was digitally resurrected for an episode of the TV series Medium that aired on November 21, 2005. Filmed partially in 3-D, it opened with Serling's introducing the episode and instructing viewers when to put on their 3-D glasses. This was accomplished using footage from The Twilight Zone episode "The Midnight Sun" and digitally manipulating Serling's mouth to match new dialogue spoken by voice actor Mark Silverman. The plot involved paintings coming to life, a nod to both The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.

On August 11, 2009, the United States Postal Service released its Early TV Memories commemorative stamp collection honoring notable television programs. One of the twenty stamps honored The Twilight Zone and featured a portrait of Rod Serling.

Rod Serling and his work on The Twilight Zone went on to inspire the Disney theme park attraction The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The ride takes place in an abandoned Hollywood hotel that was struck by lightning, causing the mysterious disappearance of five guests. Riders enter an abandoned elevator shaft as they become part of their very own "lost episode" of The Twilight Zone. The attraction takes guests up thirteen stories and drops them multiple times. Again, Mark Silverman provides the dubbing for Rod Serling's dialogue for both incarnations of the attraction, at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney California Adventure.

The Canadian rock band Rush included a memorial to Rod Serling in the liner notes of its 1976 album Caress of Steel. Two episodes of The Twilight Zone were the inspiration for a song of that name on its 2112 album.

Annually since 1995, Binghamton High School, Serling's alma mater, primarily in partnership with WSKG-TV, hosts the Rod Serling Video Festival for students in grades kindergarten through12. The festival encourages young people to engage in filmmaking.

Selected works

Filmography

• Old MacDonald Had A Curve (1953)
• Patterns (1955)
• The Arena (1956)
• Requiem for a Heavyweight (Playhouse 90) (1956)
• The Comedian (1957)
• Bomber's Moon (Playhouse 90) (1958)
• A Town Has Turned to Dust (1958)
• The Velvet Alley (1958)
• The Twilight Zone (1959–64 TV series)
• The Man in the Funny Suit (1960)
• Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962 film adaptation)
• The Yellow Canary (1963)
• Seven Days in May (1964)
• A Carol for Another Christmas (1964 TV movie)
• The Loner (1965) (TV series)
• Planet of the Apes (1968), (co-written with Michael Wilson)
• The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (1968–75 TV series) (narrator)
• Night Gallery (1970–1973 television series)
• The Man (1972 film) (story and screenplay)
• UFOs: Past, Present, and Future (1974 documentary)
• Phantom of the Paradise (1974) (uncredited introductory voice)
• Encounter with the Unknown (1975) (narrator)

Posthumous releases

• Rod Serling's Lost Classics, 1994 telefilm

Books

• Stories from the Twilight Zone, Bantam (New York City), 1960
• More Stories from the Twilight Zone, Bantam, 1961
• New Stories from the Twilight Zone, Bantam, 1962
• From the Twilight Zone, Doubleday (Garden City, NJ), 1962
• Requiem for a Heavyweight: A Reading Version of the Dramatic Script, Bantam, 1962
• Rod Serling's Triple W: Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves; A Collection,(Editor) Bantam, 1963
• The Season to Be Wary (3 novellas, "Escape Route", "Color Scheme", and "Eyes"), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1967
• Devils and Demons: A Collection, Bantam, 1967 (Editor and author of introduction)
• Night Gallery, Bantam, 1971
• Night Gallery 2, Bantam, 1972
• Rod Serling's Other Worlds, Bantam, 1978

Accolades

Honors

• 1985: Inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and the
• 1985: A star honoring Serling can be found at 6840 Hollywood Blvd. on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
• 2007: Ranked No. 1 on TV Guide's "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" list (the only non-fictitious person on the list)
• 2008: Inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame

Awards and nominations

Serling at his home in 1959—with three of his Emmys on the cabinet behind him

Year	Association	Category	Work	Result
1955	Emmy Awards	Best Original Teleplay Writing	Patterns	Won
1955	Emmy Awards	Best Television Adaptation	Climax!	Nominated
1956	Emmy Award	Best Teleplay Writing	Requiem for a Heavyweight	Won
1956	Peabody Awards	Personal Recognition for Writing	Requiem for a Heavyweight	Won
1956	Writers Guild of America	Best One Hour Drama	Requiem for a Heavyweight	Won
1956	Writers Guild of America	Best One Hour Drama	A Town Has Turned to Dust	Won
1958	Emmy Awards	Best Teleplay Writing	The Comedian	Won
1959	Emmy Awards	Best Writing of a Single Dramatic Program One Hour or Longer	A Town Has Turned to Dust	Nominated
1960	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama	The Twilight Zone	Won
1961	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama	The Twilight Zone	Won
1962	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama	The Twilight Zone	Nominated
1962	Golden Globe Awards	Best Male Television Star	The Twilight Zone	Won
1963	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama	It's Mental Work	Won
1970	Edgar Allan Poe Awards	Special Edgar for Best Episode of a TV Series	Night Gallery	Won
2001	Daytime Emmy Awards	Writing for a Children/Youth/Family Special	A Storm in Summer	Won

References

Citations

• Engel, Joel (1989). Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life In the Twilight Zone. Contemporary Books. pp. 266–267. ISBN 0-8092453-8-8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• McMahon, Ed and David Fisher (2007). When Television Was Young. Thomas Nelson. p. 3. ISBN 1-4016-0327-0. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• Sander, Gordon F. (1992). Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. Dutton. pp. ix–284. ISBN 0-525-93550-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)

Further reading

• DeVoe, Bill. (2008) Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008) The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0
• Nicholls, Peter (1979) Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Granada. ISBN 0-586-05380-8
• Marc Scott Zicree. (1992) Twilight Zone Companion Silman-James Press. ISBN 978-1-879505-09-4
• S.T. Joshi. "Rod Serling: The Moral Supernatural" in Joshi's The Evolution of the Weird Tale. NY: Hippocampus press, 2004, 139-48.

External links

• Rod Serling at IMDb
• Rod Serling at the Internet Broadway Database
• Rod Serling at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• "Rod Serling biography". Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
• Serling entry in Unitarian Universalist Biographical Dictionary
• Rod Serling Archives at Ithaca College — scripts, screenplays, films, published works by Serling, and secondary materials
• Rod Serling Papers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.
• 1959 interview by Mike Wallace
  • The interview as video (21:31)
• An Interview with Carol Serling: 'Life With Rod'
• Rod Serling Archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society Serling's papers consist of roughly 80,000 documents ranging from scripts to personal correspondence, including a folder of angry letters received by Serling