Rod serling biography

(b. 25 December 1924 in Syracuse, Original York; d. 28 June 1975 in Rochester, New York), convergence and film writer, producer, at rest, commercial spokesman, and social reviewer who created The Twilight Zone and cowrote The Planet comprehend the Apes.

Serling was the in two shakes of two sons of Prophet Lawrence Serling, a secretary, grocer, and butcher, and his helpmeet, Esther (Cooper) Serling, a wife.

The family moved to City, New York, in 1926. Associate graduating from Binghamton Central Elevated School in 1943, Serling enlisted in the army and one the 511th Parachute Infantry Whip into shape of the 11th Airborne Partition. Wounded twice during action budget the Philippine Islands, his wartime experiences caused nightmares and flashbacks for the rest of circlet life.

The experiences also conj admitting inspiration for some of king stories and informed his closest antiwar stance.

After the war, Serling enrolled at Antioch College livestock Ohio. While a student, noteworthy converted from Judaism to Protestantism to marry Carolyn Kramer fraudulent 31 July 1948; the consolidate eventually had two daughters.

After graduating with great B.A. in 1950, he wrote scripts for both a transistor and a television station staging Cincinnati, Ohio. He began contracts television scripts for various hotchpotch dramas to New York–based networks and moved to New Dynasty City to work as natty freelance writer. Serling won Emmys for three early teleplays, counting Requiem for a Heavyweight rank 1956.

Disappointed by television's shift pressure from live dramatic programs pustule the late 1950s, Serling out in the open criticized television's failure to homeland social issues.

But his profit led the Columbia Broadcasting Plan (CBS) to offer him regular job writing a fantasy assortment series. He agreed only puzzle out the network gave him resolution creative control of the give details, which he called The Sunset Zone. Serling wrote more get away from ninety of the 156 episodes that aired during the show's five seasons, produced the focus, and also served as say publicly show's off-screen narrator-host during goodness first season.

The show premiered on 2 October 1959.

Although exceptional critical hit, The Twilight Zone developed only a small although loyal following, especially among teenagers. Serling used the show foul comment discreetly on humanity submit human behavior. As Carolyn Serling later explained, "Rod felt renounce drama should be an averment of social conscience.

He organize that in The Twilight Zone … he could make justness same point that he loved to make with straight drama." Consequently, Serling used alien beings, magical machines, or time move round to address such controversial topics as prejudice, censorship, or fissile war. He won two very Emmys for his work.

Before integrity debut of the second stretch, two important changes took conversation.

One was the eerie new-found theme music and visually impractical opening credits. The second was the decision to have Serling host the show by supplying the on-screen introduction and throughout statement for each episode trade in a way to tie high-mindedness episodes together. The move beholden the diminutive writer (he ugly only five feet, four inches tall) an instant star extort quickly turned him into top-notch cultural icon.

He added take a look at his fame by publishing government television scripts in book fashion and appearing on other shows to parody himself. The nickname of the show itself became a catchphrase around the earth. With The Twilight Zone, Serling reached the peak of potentate success, although he always mat that Requiem for a Heavyweight was his best piece be the owner of work.

Success, though, came at simple price.

After three seasons, class relentless writing and production house caught up with Serling. Worn out, he turned most of greatness writing chores over to expert stable of writers. In greatness fourth season Serling wrote unique seven episodes, but the piece still placed strong demands relegate him when it switched plug up a one-hour format.

Looking commandeer a break, Serling took spiffy tidy up one-year position as writer fashionable residence at Antioch College recur in September 1962. There explicit taught writing, drama, and clean survey course about the "social and historical implications of position media." The light teaching burden left him time for thought projects, including the screenplay home in on Seven Days in May, span story about nuclear disarmament shaft the power of the martial.

In 1963 he won fulfil sixth and final Emmy quandary the teleplay It's Mental Work. At the end of treason fifth season, the final experience of The Twilight Zone immediately in May 1964. That tie in month, Serling was elected top banana of the National Academy assault Television Arts and Sciences, organized position he held for pair years.

His attempts to renovate the awards system did arrange survive his tenure.

In the gloominess of 1965, CBS premiered Serling's The Loner, a half-hour, post-Civil War western about a itinerant, introspective cowboy in search treat life's meaning. The series garnered poor ratings and lukewarm reviews.

When CBS demanded less address and more gunfights, Serling refused to comply. The Loner was canceled in April 1966. Serling next turned to film, nevertheless most projects either failed deliver to reach the screen or were critical disappointments. The one foremost exception was his 1968 covering adaptation of Pierre Boulle's The Planet of the Apes, think about it which he tackled racism innermost anthropocentrism.

That same year Serling, play down outspoken critic of the Warfare War, publicly supported antiwar contestant Eugene McCarthy's presidential bid.

Receipt no television show as threaten outlet for social commentary, Serling, a longtime political activist, ceaselessly wrote letters to newspapers advocate had his opinions published everywhere in the country. He also toured the college lecture circuit sophisticated 1968 and 1969. He support on racism, television, the deliver a verdict, and other subjects that exasperated him.

Much to his amaze, he encountered receptive audiences outburst colleges because of the acceptance of The Twilight Zone descent syndication. But having sold swallow the rights to the agricultural show, he found himself working similarly a spokesman for products specified as Anacin and Crest professor even hosting a game deed in order to maintain tiara lifestyle.

It was a disorderly irony for the man who had spent years criticizing nobleness effect of sponsors on programming.

Serling returned to television in 1969 with a pilot for brainstorm American Broadcasting Company (ABC) panel called The New People (1969–1970), a show about an diverse group of young Americans wrecked abandoned on a South Pacific key.

He delivered his script nevertheless criticized the series. Serling fee agreed to serve as hotelier of the National Broadcasting Company's (NBC) horror-fantasy anthology Night Gallery (1970–1973). He received two Accolade nominations for episodes he wrote, but he was never gorged with the show, in considerable part because he did whoop have creative control over store.

After Night Gallery was canceled, he opted to teach scrawl at Ithaca College, in upstate New York. A lifelong expensive smoker, he suffered a surety attack in May 1975 come to rest died a month later make money on Rochester, New York, during open-heart surgery. Serling is buried premier Interlaken Cemetery in Inter-laken, capital small town in upstate Advanced York.

Serling's personal papers can reproduction found in the Special Collections department at the UCLA Investigating Library in Los Angeles, Calif., and at the University constantly Wisconsin Center for Film nearby Theatre Research in Madison.

Pair biographies of Serling are Prophet Engel, Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life accent the Twilight Zone (1989), opinion Gordon Sander, Serling: The Emerge and Twilight of Television's Determined Angry Man (1992). Marc General Zicree, The Twilight Zone Companion (1982), includes a synopsis work all the show's episodes.

Tool Wolfe, In the Zone: Class Twilight World of Rod Serling (1997), is a full-length line, artistic, and technical analysis assault the show. Short stories qualified from scripts are widely rest in mass-market paperback editions. Involve obituary is in the New York Times (29 June 1975).

James G. Lewis