Rod Serling

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Rod Serling

Rod Serling hosting The Twilight Zone
Born December 25, 1924(1924-12-25)
Syracuse, New York
Died June 28, 1975 (aged 50)
Rochester, New York
Occupation Screenwriter
Spouse Carol Serling
(1948-1975) (his death)

Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling (December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975) was an American screenwriter, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone.

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[edit] Biography

The second of two sons (his brother Robert J. Serling later became a novelist), Rod was born in Syracuse, New York to Samuel and Esther Serling, but was raised in Binghamton, New York, where he later graduated from Binghamton Central High School. He earned his B.A. in 1950 from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Though brought up in a Jewish family, Serling became a Unitarian Universalist. Serling's family had a summer home on Cayuga Lake, in New York's Finger Lakes region, and inspired the name "Cayuga Productions" for his Twilight Zone production company.

[edit] Military service

Rod Serling served as a U.S. Army paratrooper and demolition specialist with the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 11th Airborne Division in the Pacific Theater in World War II from January 1943 to January 1945. He was seriously wounded in the wrist and knee during combat and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

Serling's military service deeply affected the rest of his life and informed much of his writing. Due to his wartime experiences, Serling suffered from nightmares and flashbacks. During his service in World War II, he watched as his best friend was crushed to death by a heavy supply crate dropped by parachute onto the field. Serling was rather short (5'4") and slight. He was a noted boxer during his military days.[1]

[edit] Early writing career

Biographers note that throughout his career, Serling was inspired by legendary radio and television playwright Norman Corwin. Both men would trace their careers through the WLW broadcasting franchise to eventually find homes at CBS, and both would be honored for weaving pivotal social themes into their scripts.

In 1951, Serling started to break into television by writing scripts for The Doctor, Fireside Theater, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Lux Video Theater, Kraft Television Theatre, Suspense and Studio One. He also worked for local Cincinnati TV station WKRC (Channel 12), where he wrote a series of live TV shows titled The Storm. The program was a precursor to The Twilight Zone, as was one of the scripts: Requiem for a Heavyweight.

In 1955, Kraft Television Theatre presented another of Serling's scripts, the seventy-second to reach the air. To the Serlings, it was just another script, and they missed the first live airing. The name of the show was Patterns and it changed Rod Serling's life. Patterns dramatized the power struggle among a corporate boss, an old hand running out of ideas and energy, and a bright young executive being groomed to take the older man's place. It was a huge hit, and was re-aired the following week, which was nearly unprecedented at the time. The script established Serling as a rarity: a television playwright.

More acclaimed teleplays followed, including The Rack, about a Korean War veteran and the effects of torture, the legendary Requiem for a Heavyweight (from CBS's Playhouse 90 series), and several others, some of which were adapted to the big screen. Requiem, like Patterns, was honored as a milestone in television drama. The installment's producer, Martin Manulis, noted in a PBS biography of Serling that after the live broadcast, CBS chairman William S. Paley called the control room to tell the crew that the show had advanced TV by 10 years. The show's director, Ralph Nelson, wrote and directed a television drama four years later for the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse about writing Requiem for a Heavyweight called The Man in the Funny Suit, in which Serling appeared as himself.

Tired of seeing his scripts butchered (removing any political statements, ethnic identities, even the Chrysler Building being removed from a script sponsored by Ford), Serling decided the only recourse for avoiding such artistic interference was to create his own show.

[edit] The Twilight Zone

In 1959, CBS aired the first episode of a groundbreaking series, The Twilight Zone. Serling fought hard for creative control, hiring writers he respected (such as Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont) and launched himself into weekly television. He stated in an interview that "the science fiction format would not be controversial and would escape censorship unlike the earlier Playhouse 90.[2] In reality the show gave him the opportunity to communicate social messages in a more veiled context.

Serling drew on his own experiences for many episodes, with frequent stories about boxing, military life and aircraft pilots, which integrated Serling's firsthand knowledge. The series also incorporated Serling's progressive social views on racial relations and the like, which were somewhat veiled by the sci-fi/fantasy elements of the shows. Occasionally, however, Serling could be quite blunt, as in the episode I Am The Night — Color Me Black, where America's racism and hatred causes a dark cloud to form in the South before eventually spreading elsewhere. Serling was also progressive on matters of gender, with many stories featuring quick-thinking, resilient women, although he also wrote stories featuring shrewish, nagging wives.

The show lasted five seasons (four using a half-hour format, with one half-season using an hour-long format), winning awards and critical acclaim for Serling and his staff. While having a loyal fan base, the program never had huge ratings and was twice canceled, only to be revived. After five years and 156 episodes, 92 of them written by Serling himself, Serling wearied of the show. In 1964, he decided to let the third cancellation be final.

Serling sold his rights to the series to CBS. His wife later claimed that he did this partly because he believed the studio would never recoup the cost of the show, which frequently went over budget. In hindsight, this move proved to be a costly mistake.

[edit] Night Gallery

In 1969, NBC aired a Serling-penned pilot for a new series, Night Gallery. Set in a dimly lit museum, the pilot film featured Serling (as on-camera host) introducing three tales of the macabre, unveiling canvases that would appear in the subsequent story segments.

The series, which premiered in December 1970 (its brief first season rotated as one spoke of a four-series programming wheel titled Four in One), focused more on gothic horror and the occult than did The Twilight Zone. Serling, no longer wanting the burden of an executive position, sidestepped an offer to retain creative control of content — a decision he would come to regret. Although discontented with some of producer Jack Laird's script and creative choices, Serling maintained a stream of creative submissions and ultimately wrote over a third of the series' scripts.

By season three however, Serling began to see many of his script contributions rejected. With his complaints ignored, the disgruntled host dismissed the show as "Mannix in a cemetery." Night Gallery lasted until 1973.

While the series has its own cult following, it is not as successful as The Twilight Zone and is generally regarded as a pale shadow of Serling's previous series.

[edit] Fiction

Serling wrote a number of short stories in the science fiction and horror genres, which were collected into three volumes of Twilight Zone stories (1960, 1961, 1962), two of Night Gallery stories (1971, 1972) and a collection of three novellas, The Season to be Wary (1968). Serling also released a collection of teleplays, Patterns, in 1957. The collection included the teleplays for "Patterns," "The Rack," "Old MacDonald Had a Curve," and "Requiem For a Heavyweight".

A critical essay on Serling's fiction can be found in S. T. Joshi's book The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004). Joshi emphasises Serling's moralism and the streak of misanthropy imbuing his work, and argues that, far from being merely rewritten scripts, many of Serling's stories can stand as genuinely original and meritorious works of prose fiction.

[edit] Later years

Subsequent to The Twilight Zone, Serling moved onto cinema screens and continued to write for television. In 1964, he scripted Carol for Another Christmas, a television adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It was telecast only once, December 28, 1964, on ABC.[3]

Serling wrote a number of screenplays with a political focus, including Seven Days in May (1964) about an attempted military coup against the President of the United States; Planet of the Apes (1968); and The Man (1972) about the first African American President.

Serling had taped introductions for a limited-run summer comedy series on ABC, Keep on Truckin', which was scheduled to begin its run several weeks after his death; these introductions were subsequently edited out of the broadcast episodes. He also wrote the pilot episode for a short-lived Aaron Spelling series called The New People in 1969.

Serling returned to radio in 1974 as the host of a new mystery/adventure series called The Zero Hour.[4] The show aired for two years and Serling wrote several of the scripts. It failed to find a large audience due to its radio serial format and lack of promotion.[5]

Late in his life, Serling taught at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York where he resided for many years, and did voiceovers for various projects. He narrated documentaries featuring French undersea explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and (uncredited) performed the narration for the beginning of the Brian De Palma film Phantom of the Paradise.

In 1975, Serling had two severe heart attacks before entering Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester for heart bypass surgery. He had a third heart attack during the operation and died the following day, at the age of 50. He is interred at the cemetery in Interlaken, New York, an area of upstate New York featured prominently in some Twilight Zone episodes.

After his death, several Serling scripts were produced. In 1988, J. Michael Straczynski scripted Serling's outline "Our Selena Is Dying" for the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994) was a TV movie based on a Serling script and an outline for another story (the latter was expanded and scripted by Richard Matheson), In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1997) was set in the Warsaw Ghetto, a science-fiction remake of A Town Has Turned to Dust (1998), and A Storm in Summer (2000) followed.

[edit] Awards and honors

During his lifetime, Rod Serling received six Emmys, and his biggest successes in writing include:

[edit] Legacy in television

When casting for the role of the shady Mr. Morden for the television series Babylon 5, creator J. Michael Straczynski chose Ed Wasser - who had played a bit part in the series' two-hour pilot TV movie - for the role because of his slick looks, charm, and vocal mannerisms reminiscent of a young Rod Serling.

Serling was ranked #1 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (in the 1 August 2004 issue).

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. The episode, which was partially filmed in 3-D, opened with Serling introducing the episode and instructing viewers as to when to put on their 3-D glasses. This was accomplished by using footage from The Twilight Zone episode "The Midnight Sun" and digitally manipulating Serling's mouth to match new dialogue spoken by impersonator Mark Silverman. The plot of the episode involved paintings coming to life, a nod to both The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.

The annual Halloween episodes of The Simpsons have regularly featured parodies of classic Twilight Zone episodes. These episodes include "Treehouse of Horror", "Treehouse of Horror II", and "Treehouse of Horror XIV". "Treehouse of Horror IV" borrows the opening from Serling's Night Gallery and includes a segment based on a Twilight Zone episode.

[edit] Legacy in other media

Over the years, a number of pop/rock songs have included tributes and references to Rod Serling and/or The Twilight Zone.

  • In 1982, Dutch rock band Golden Earring scored a hit with a song titled "Twilight Zone".
  • In 1979, the vocal group The Manhattan Transfer scored a big hit with "The Twilight Zone / The Twilight Tone" a jazz-rock variation of the classic Marius Constant theme from the television series (from their Extensions album; their promotional video clip even had lead singer Alan Paul standing beside a door floating in space, mimicking Rod Serling for the introduction.
  • On "Threatened", a track from his 2001 album Invincible, pop superstar Michael Jackson used samples of Rod Serling narrations from The Twilight Zone as introduction and conclusion to the song, as well as a montage of clips to make Serling rap in the middle section of the tune.
  • The Twilight Zone was parodied in an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, in which the episode was themed for. It was called "The Billy Zone." During the show, you can see a cartoon version of Rod Serling, and ends up getting beat up at the end.

In the late 1970's Canadian rock music trio RUSH dedicated the album "Caress Of Steel" to the memory of Rod Serling. Lyricist and drummer Neil Peart and his wife Jackie named their only child, a daughter, Selena.

On April 5, 1993, Midway introduced The Twilight Zone pinball machine which featured a backglass portrait of Serling surrounded by his creations.[6]

In 1994, the Walt Disney World resort opened its premier free fall attraction titled "The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror" at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida. The ride places guests into an unaired episode of The Twilight Zone, where they are introduced to the story by Rod Serling. The story is that at the height of the Hollywood golden age, a famous landmark hotel holding a gala event is struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Passenger elevators carrying 5 guests mysteriously vanish after plummeting 13 stories, and the tower has stood derelict since that fateful night. Guests board "freight elevators" that carry them upwards and then laterally into the free fall shaft, where they visit the "5th Dimension" room which references the opening TV title sequence. (Footage from "It's a Good Life" was combined with voiceover work of impersonator Mark Silverman). It is a misconception that Serling's trademark cigarette is absent from his hand due to the family-friendly atmosphere of the ride, as it is actually absent in the original footage as well.[7]

A similar version of the ride appears in California at Disney's California Adventure. The ride differs in aspects of pacing and tone, but nonetheless, Serling is part of the attraction. The Florida and California editions of the ride feature props from various Twilight Zone episodes.

Tokyo DisneySea has their own version of the Tower of Terror, however the "backstory" departs from the California and Florida versions, erasing all ties to "The Twilight Zone" including any reference, mention, or appearance of Rod Serling.

Disneyland Paris is scheduled to open their version of the ride in January of 2008 and will feature Serling as well as retain "The Twilight Zone" theme.

The Korean pop group SES recorded a song called "Twilight Zone" in 2001.

In an episode of Family Guy, the neighborhood argues over who stole the Golden Clam trophy in a manner similar to The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street. Rod Serling then comes on screen narrating until Peter accuses him of stealing the trophy. Later, it is revealed that Brian had it the whole time. When Rod begins narrating again, Brian hits him in the back of the head with a shovel.

A parody from Futurama.
A parody from Futurama.

In an episode of Futurama, The Twilight Zone is parodied and it is called "The Scary Door." The Twilight Zone episode referenced is Time Enough at Last, Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith's character) is seen in a library. As he says there is time at last his glasses break. When he says he can read large print his eyes fall out. When he says he can read braille his hands fall off. Then he screams and his tongue falls out and then he becomes decapitated.

[edit] Other filmography

[edit] References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  1. ^ Rod Serling - Man From the Twilight Zone Clifton Unitarian Church; 2000.
  2. ^ Roasting Rod Serling. Retrieved on 2008-01-01.
  3. ^ Vinciguerra, Thomas. "Marley Is Dead, Killed in a Nuclear War, December 20, 2007.
  4. ^ The Zero Hour Radio Log
  5. ^ History of Mutual Radio's Zero Hour
  6. ^ Internet Pinball Database - Twilight Zone. Retrieved on 2007-02-15.
  7. ^ Interview with Mark Silverman. WDWMagic.com (October 2006). Retrieved on 2006-12-25.

[edit] External links


The Twilight Zone
v • d • e
Series

The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) | The New Twilight Zone | The Twilight Zone (2002 series)
Key People

Rod Serling | Buck Houghton | Charles Beaumont | Richard Matheson | Jerry Sohl | George Clayton Johnson | Earl Hamner Jr. | Reginald Rose | Ray Bradbury
See Also

Playhouse 90 | List of The Twilight Zone episodes | List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) guest stars | The Twilight Zone (pinball) | Twilight Zone: The Movie | The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror


Persondata
NAME Serling, Rod
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Serling, Rodman Edward
SHORT DESCRIPTION Screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Syracuse, New York
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1975
PLACE OF DEATH Rochester, New York