ROD SERLING’s 100th Anniversary: Here Are 13 of His Greatest Stories
A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE: The legendary writer was born a century ago… By PETER BOSCH 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. There’s a signpost up ahead… your next stop: The 13th Dimension! Submitted for your approval, the story of one Rodman Edward Serling – known to his friends as “Rod” – an ex-paratrooper who wanted to write for television. And though only 5 feet, 4 inches in height, he would become a giant in the industry. And he did it through a wondrous place called… The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling was born 100 years ago, on Christmas Day 1924, in Syracuse, New York. Following his time in the military during World War II, in which he was wounded and received a Purple Heart, he used his G.I. benefits to enroll at Ohio’s Antioch College, where he gained an interest in writing. In connection with the school’s outside program, he landed an internship with a New York City radio station. Back at Antioch, he became a disc jockey and manager of the school’s radio station, as well as acted in original dramatic anthology programs he wrote. He then became a staff writer at a Cincinnati radio station. His first sale to television was as early as 1950. Following that he kept writing and selling scripts but success in the industry did not come on strong. Not until the night of January 12, 1955… the night Patterns aired: PATTERNS Patterns (Kraft Television Theatre, January 12, 1955). And, yes, that is Elizabeth Montgomery in an early role at the beginning. Minutes after Patterns ended, his home phone began ringing with network offers. It was the breakthrough that launched Rod Serling’s career. So popular was the program, it was re-enacted live on air a few weeks later. The script went on to win Serling his first Emmy Award for writing. (The following year, Patterns was remade as a motion picture, with Serling expanding the script for the longer medium but losing none of the power of the original.) Such was the demand for his work now, he was able to clean out his trunk of unsold scripts, and still the requests came for more. However, he knew that nothing that he...
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