Requiem for Rod Serling

[Omaha Steve]

Marta and I have been to two TZcons.

2002: http://www.steveandmarta.com/graveyards/tzcon2002.htm

2004: http://www.steveandmarta.com/tzcon2004.htm

We are on the credits for the 80's version DVD release: http://www.steveandmarta.com/ntz1.htm

OS

http://grantland.com/features/rod-serling-the-twilight-zone-boxing/



It’s been 60 years since he changed television with his teleplays and his unforgettable TV show ‘The Twilight Zone.’ Now, friends, family, and world-class showrunners David Chase and Matthew Weiner remember the pugilistic power of Rod Serling.

by JAMES HUGHES ON NOVEMBER 19, 2014
An airliner vanishes from the sky. Intruders stray across unenforced borders. Technophobes succumb to gadgets while automatons steal their jobs. Identities are erased. Aliens lurk.

After the framework for each installment in The Twilight Zone has been teased, the camera whip-pans to Rod Serling, the embodiment of American anxiety. He presides from a safe distance — tucked into a witness stand, a corner booth, a Culver City soundstage — and talks through his teeth, wrists clasped at the waist. Reinforced in this device, perhaps the most effective method of introduction ever designed for television, is the secret formula of The Twilight Zone — the act that isolates. As spellbound travelers wander through empty towns and doppelgängers chase each other down deserted streets, only the viewer and the narrator share their findings. Were cameras and kinescopes unable to track these subjects as their lives spiraled out of control, there would always be Serling’s monologues to encapsulate the unexplainable. A pitch, a premise, a nightmare.

Accepting his second Emmy1 for Best Teleplay Writing, in 1957, Serling said, “A writer rarely gets an opportunity to get in front of the camera, so I’m gonna take this opportunity.” Two years later, the Twilight Zone pilot would air on CBS, the first of 156 episodes, 92 of which were written or adapted by Serling. As head writer and narrator, appearing on-camera from the second season until the fifth and final in 1964, Serling would perhaps reconsider his remark at the Emmy podium. While his deadpan monologues appear to be the model of composure, he once quipped, “Only my laundress really knows how frightened I am.”

While Serling holds his iconic on-camera stance, two scars hide in plain sight. One is from the shrapnel that tore through his wrist during a bomb blast at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in 1944. The other is a twice-broken nose, received not from combat, but during his training as a paratrooper in Georgia and Louisiana, where he boxed as a flyweight with his fellow “paraguys,” as he affectionately called them. Known for his berserker style, Serling tried his hand at the Golden Gloves, though he promptly retired from boxing when his nose was bashed for the second time, during his 17th and final fight.

FULL story and more at link.

[rudolph the red]

1. The Twilight Zone was a pretty good show

I watched it when I was a kid.

[exboyfil]

2. Love Rod Serling but he did have a tendency

to borrow too liberally from other writers. One example is Mister Garrity and the Graves which almost surely plagiarized Philip Jose Farmer's Uproar in Acheron. Having watched the episode and read the short story, it is the only conclusion that can be drawn. The other piece of evidence is the writer Mike Korologos who has no other story contributions. I think he is the same person who was a journalist that went into public relations. Maybe he fooled Serling, but given the complaints of other authors he could also have been a convenient cut out for Serling.

Other writers also complained such as Bradbury and Beaumont.

[longship]

3. Wow. Just wow!

I remember the original Twilight Zone. It was a helluva great series.

Alice, my previous wife -- we are now amicably divorced -- was a TWA stewardess on the LA to NYC route in the late 60's. She had many stories about working transcontinental first class when famous stars were on the plane. There were some horror stories -- notably Lucille Ball, who apparently refused to talk to "the help" -- but there were some stories of those who were just people, gracious, charming, and easy going. Of the latter, Alice said, two stood out. One was Vincent Price; the other was Rod Serling. She described both, especially Serling, as being very pleasant and even fun to have as a passenger. Her take was that a famous person's character is best expressed in how they act when nobody is watching. Apparently Rod was one of the good ones.

As always, thanks for the look back, OS.

R&K