“I don’t think that calling something commercial makes it stink.”
Rod Serling
“A legend doesn’t die, just because the man dies.”
The Twilight Zone episode A Game of Pool
Rod Serling was born in Syracuse, New York and joined the U.S. Army the day after he graduated from Binghamton Central High School where he had worked on the school newspaper. During World War II he fought in the Philippines where he routinely saw the casualties of war that would shape his life and writing. He was injured himself , received the Purple Heart, and was discharged in 1946.
Afterwards he attended Anitoch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio where he got involved in theater and writing radio dramas. He received his BA degree in 1950 and moved to Cincinnati to work in advertising writing for radio and television. In less than ten years he created his signature show, The Twilight Zone.
In 1959 Rod Serling was interviewed on TV by Mike Wallace and told about how in 1951, at a diner in Cincinnati, he decided to leave the security of his advertising job in Ohio to write freelance for television programs.
“The immediate motive at the time, the prodding thing that pushed me in to it, was that I had been writing at the time for a Cincinnati television station as a staff writer—which is a particularly dreamless occupation, composed of doing commercials. Even making up testimonial letters. As I recall there was a liquid drug on the market at the time that could cure everything from arthritis to a fractured pelvis and I actually had to write testimonial letters, and on that particular day I’d just had it. And though I had been freelancing concurrent with the staff job, the best year I’d ever had (freelance-wise) I think we netted $700 which is hardly even grocery money, and that one night we just decided to sink or swim and go into it.”
Rod Serling
Serling swam. He would have been 27-28 years old at the time and six months after that decision he moved to Connecticut and then New York. Serling kept building his career in TV and one of the first programs to show his genius was Requiem for a Heavyweight for the Playhouse 90 TV series in 1956. But his greatest success came when he launched the The Twilight Zone on CBS on October 2, 1959.
Despite its enduring popularity, The Twilight Zone didn’t draw large audiences, nor was it a financial success for CBS when it first aired. The show was cancelled in 1964. Serling whose normal workload was 12-14 hour a days, seven days a week was burned out on TV. He wrote well more than half of the 156 episodes, and grew tired of having to fight the corporate sponsors and the censorship imposed on him.
Not thinking The Twilight Zone would have much of a future he sold his rights to the show for $500,000. which would have cost him and his estate tens of millions of dollars. He turned to teaching in his later years and died at the young age of 50.
P.S. A couple of days ago I said that at one time Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise and George Clooney all lived in Kentucky at the same time. Well, just over the Ohio River at one time Rod Serling and Steven Spielberg would have lived in Ohio at the same time. In fact, I’m not sure how long Spielberg lived in Ohio, but he was born in Cincinnati in 1946 so he could have even been in the same city—heck, at the same diner—as Serling when he had his epiphany. Maybe not a big deal, unless you believe in another dimension, a dimension of both shadow and substance, a dimension only found…in The Twilight Zone.
[...] “I don’t think that calling something commercial makes it stink.” Rod Serling “A legend doesn’t die, just because the man dies.” The Twilight Zone episode A Game of Pool Rod Serling was born in Syracuse, New York and joined the U.S. Army the day after he graduated from Binghamton Central High School where he had [...] Original Source… [...]
I remember Serling as a striking presence, a ghost that haunted each Twilight Zone episode. His wry sense of humor, rugged good looks and cool demeanor were an odd idea for the host of a fantasy/sci-fi series, but in a strange way, perfect.
When is the last time TV had a writer who could command such attention? Harlan Ellison has tried it and come close, but he lacks the temperament–you always feel his rage. Serling exuded a sense of control. Ellison is always one turn from flying off the rails.
Serling was a great moralistic writer, something he shared with Mark Twain, O. Henry and Nathaniel Hawthorn. Each Twilight Zone episode was a fable with a moral twist at the end. Serling also connected with so-called “common men” and understood their ambitions. He also had a hatred for the pettiness of small dictators clutching for power that always slips through their fingers.
The only name that even comes close to the output, consistency and supervisory skill that Serling demonstrated is Aaron Sorkin, who wrote The American President, A Few Good Men, The West Wing and Sports Night, and even the well-written but doomed Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Sorkin lacks the range and imagination of Serling, however. In the arena that Serling created, he is still the champion.
Why, yes, I do believe in another dimension. And somewhere out there right now are the people who don’t know it yet but will someday be working with me as we bring my script to screen…
Meg—That’s the spirit.
Loyd—Very insightful and well-written comments on Mr. Serling. You’re officially in the “Screenwriting from Iowa” Comment Hall of Fame.
Ironically, I think part of what makes Serling’s work so enduring was the very censorship that he buckled against. For instance, he wanted to write about racism in the south but the sponsors of the show wanted to avoid controversy so he’d write something about space aliens instead.
The results were powerful as he found a less on-the-nose (less preachy) way to deal with the themes of how humans interact with people who are different than them. It forced him to be subtle and in turn made his work more universal, as well as resonate deeper.
The same could be said for the limitations of budget. Serling wasn’t able to let his imagination go wherever he wanted. No, he usually had to limit himself to a small cast, and limited locations and wardrobe options.
Even the limitations of being shot in black & white helps the timelessness of “The Twilight Zone.” It seems fresh today even though the series was first created 50 years ago.
And thanks for bringing up the prolific writer Aaron Sorkin. You mentioned that he was the only writer who “comes close to the output, consistency and supervisory skill that Serling demonstrated.” I’d just like to point out that he went to college in Syracuse, New York—the very city where Rod Serling was born.
Cue “The Twilight Zone” music…