My Trip in the Twilight Zone with Rod Serling

 "You unlock this door with the key of imagination..."

 

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Long before Rod Serling became a household name, he'd was a boxer, a soldier, and an actor. But it was with 1959's The Twilight Zone that he shined the brightest and let his true voice, virtues, politics, and all around social commentary be known.

Rod SerlingOn each Twilight Zone Show episode Rod would say, "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. That's the signpost up ahead--your next stop, The Twilight Zone!"  I felt that I was right there when I last talked to him on June 26, 1975.

I worked as a part-time checker/clerk while going to college. Rod Serling would occasionally stop by the Westward Ho Market in Brentwood, CA to do some shopping on the way to his home in Pacific Palisades adjacent to Brentwood in the Los Angeles area.  I remember the last time which was a warm 84°F day in Summer, 1975 on June 26th, a Saturday night about 9:30 pm and there only a few shoppers in the store. I saw him when he came in decked out in his tennis whites, shorts, shirt and tennis shoes looking very tan and trim, athletically fit and like he had just come of the courts, but still very refreshed. He had dashed in to pick up some pints of ice cream. As I checked his items, I said to him that I appreciated his show, The Twilight Zone.  He then gave me that crooked smirky smile which was so him and very friendly too. He graciously thank me for the compliment and stood back and chatted with me for a few minutes about the Twilight Zones and to look forward to some new programs he was working on coming out since the Twilight Zone had been off the air since 1964.

He was genuinely enthused as he spoke with passion which impressed me as a college senior in Business courses.  It was a quality trait he so easily exuded and shared and I noted as one I would like to embrace too.  To this day, after successfully generating millions of dollars in sales, I wholeheartedly believe enthusiasm sells your ideas.  Rod Serling really proved it during his career as he sold his shows to the studios.

He mentioned that he was flying back to New York for a meeting and returning the following week. I wished him well and he said goodbye, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone myself and maybe I was too. Rod Serling died forty-eight hours later on the following Monday, June 28, during a ten hour operation when he suffered a heart attack and died at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY as they attempted a scheduled heart bypass surgery for heart blockage due to Rod’s excessive smoking and a family history of coronary heart disease like his father and grandfather who both died in their 50’s. Rod Serling was only 50 years old himself.

As for myself, I truly felt his pain personally about the trauma of any heart surgery. Although to do his bypass surgery is a serious procedure, in 2007 I had open heart surgery to replace an aortic valve. Both heart surgeries are akin to fixing an engine while it's running; one for fuel lines to the carburetor or the other for repairing the fuel pump itself.  I am very thankful mine was thirty-two years later with far more advanced surgical techniques, equipment and parts. Ironically, Rod was fifty then and I was sixty-one at my time of surgery. I am nearly seventy now and wonder what a guy like Rod Serling would have accomplished with another thirty-nine years, by age 89?  Now, that's something to imagine and really ponder ...in the Twilight Zone!

Here is an example of Rod Serling's thoughts on the WWII atrocities against Jews and other victims which is so apropos today in 2015:

"Dachau is left standing because it must be. All the Dachaus--all the Belsens, all the Buchenwalds, all the Auschwitzs—all of it. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge...but worst of all, their consciences. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to think about, something to dwell on, and remember...not only in the Twilight Zone, but wherever men walk God's Earth." 

Rod Serling's Bio:

As host of The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, Rod Serling's face, recognizable way of speaking, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies became well known by the general public, and his image and legacy remain to be a staple in the world of media and popular culture to this day.

Beginning his career in radio, Serling later went on to  become a significant screenwriter for television, where he wrote "Patterns" and "Requiem for a Heavyweight," (both of which were later turned into films). Serling's relationship with networks was a rocky one though. He was constantly battling with censors and sponsors who didn't want to be associated with anything too controversial that might make them look bad to buyers. 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 way to avoid such artistic interference was to create his own show. This is around the time he devolved the fantasy/science-fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Collaborating with such talented and revered writers as Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont, The Twilight Zone was an instant success with critics and gained a loyal fanbase (although it had a slow start in the beginning with the general public; cancelled twice only to be revived). In the show, Serling also made it a point to incorporate many of his progressive social views on racial relations, feminism, politics, Cold War paranoia and the horrors of war, and other parables that were somewhat veiled by the science fiction and fantasy elements of the shows. The show ran for 5 years and consisted of a total of 156 episodes, 92 of which Serling wrote himself.

After The Twilight Zone had ended its run in 1964, Rod Serling went on to work on other television series such as the short-lived The Loner, a version of the game show Liar's Club, and finally went back to his roots with the Twilight Zone-esque horror series Night Gallery, which he hosted and wrote over a third of the scripts for. By season three, however, Serling began to see many of his script contributions rejected and flat-out butchered. With his complaints ignored, the disgruntled host dismissed the show as "Mannix in a cemetery".

Under the trivia about Rod Serling: "Did you know?..."

• As a Golden Gloves boxer, Rod broke his nose twice. He won 17 out 18 matches. He lost his championship fight.


• He co-wrote Planet of the Apes.


• He usually dictated his scripts into a tape recorder and had his secretary type them up.


• Military decorations from the Second World War include: World War II Victory Medal, American Campaign Service Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (with Arrowhead Device), Good Conduct Medal, Phillippine Liberation Medal (with 1 bronze service star), Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman Badge, Parachutist Badge, and Honorable Service Lapel Pin. Also retroactively authorized the Bronze Star Medal, based on receipt of the Combat Infantryman Badge during the Second World War.


• Serling was ranked #1 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (in the August 1, 2004 issue). He was also the only real-life person on the list. All the others were fictitious characters.


• 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".


• Struggling to make ends meet, a young Serling earned extra income by testing experimental parachutes for the U.S. Army Air Force, earning $500 per jump.


• He wanted Richard Egan to do the narration for "Twilight Zone" (1959) because of his rich, deep voice. However, due to strict studio contracts of the time, Egan was unable to. Serling said "It's Richard Egan or no one. It's Richard Egan, or I'll do the thing myself," which is exactly what happened.


• He was quoted as saying: "If you need drugs to be a good writer, you're not a good writer."