![]() Leaving behind his wife Carol and daughters Jodi and Anne, Rod Serling was just 50 years old. Although the surgical team fought valiantly to save his life, he died two days later on June 28, 1975. While undergoing 10 hours of surgery to bypass blockages in his deteriorating arteries, he suffered a third heart attack on the operating table. Years of overwork, stress and a three to five pack a day cigarette habit were taking their toll. Rod Serling's doctors determined that he would require a risky open-heart procedure to save his life. was not a psychopathic malcontent, just a good, decent, American boy momentarily gone wrong." Further, it was suggested that the killer. He was to be called an unnamed foreigner. "My victim could no longer be anyone as specific as an old Jew. "The script was gone over with a fine-toothed comb by thirty different people, and I attended at least two meetings a day for over a week, taking down notes as to what had to be changed," Serling explained. Nevertheless, the tenuous connection to the Till case provoked the threat of a boycott in the South.Īs recounted in an article archived by the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, Serling's script suffered a death by committee. Serling learned a hard lesson about censorship with his 1956 script "Noon on Doomsday." Inspired by the tragic case of Emmett Till, a Black teen abducted, beaten, and murdered in Mississippi, Serling's script avoided overt racial connotations and instead focused on the moral dilemma faced by a defense attorney and the complicity of a small community in the murder of a Jewish pawnbroker, per NPR. In under a decade, Serling had risen from struggling radio writer to acknowledged TV visionary. Serling's next runaway success was "Requiem for a Heavyweight," a boxing drama written for Playhouse 90 which won the first Peabody Award for a teleplay. A tale of corporate intrigue and cruelty, "Patterns" was a hit with both critics and viewers. In 1955, "Patterns," a script Serling wrote for Kraft Television Theatre, would launch the young writer into prominence as a creative force in the new medium. Within a year, he was earning a living writing for such shows as Hallmark Hall of Fame and Kraft Television Theatre. After a frustrating stint in local radio and TV, he devoted himself to freelance scriptwriting full time in 1952. Intuiting that radio was in decline, Serling switched media and decided to focus on television. Christian Show titled "To Live a Dream" took second prize in its weekly writing competition. However, his fortunes changed when his script for The Dr. One particularly dangerous test offered a windfall of $500, half to be paid before the jump and half after if he survived.ĭuring this time, Serling also devoted himself to freelance writing and submitting scripts to popular radio shows. At $50 a jump, this dangerous part-time job was an exciting way to pay the bills. Looking for fast cash, Serling decided to put his paratrooper training to use and took a job testing parachutes for the Army, per the AG Journal. Internships were rewarding, but they barely covered his expenses. He may have only been writing public service announcements and squibs, but it was still writing for radio. The job delighted Serling who, in this small way, was following in the footsteps of his radio drama heroes Arch Oboler and Norman Corwin. ![]() There, Serling got his first experience as a scriptwriter. In 1946, he landed a job interning at New York City public radio station WNYC as part of his Antioch work-study. Switching majors to English literature and drama, Serling began to seriously pursue writing. ![]() However, a required first-year language and literature course taught by writer Nolan Miller soon rekindled his artistic passions. Serling initially majored in physical education. The war haunted Serling and influenced him for the rest of his life. Although the physical scars would fade, the psychological wounds never healed. For his service, Rod Serling was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. Seeing action at the Battle of Tagaytay Ridge and the siege of Manila, Serling was wounded numerous times and watched a friend die. Stationed in the Philippines during the latter days of the conflict, Serling came face-to-face with the realities of combat. War was far from the adventure he assumed it to be. Instead, he wound up in the 511th Parachute Infantry of the 11th Airborne Division.Īlthough Rod Serling had hoped to take on Hitler's forces in Europe, he was shipped off to the Pacific Theater. Uncle Sam, however, had a different plan for Rod Serling whose eyesight wasn't quite keen enough. Eager to get in the thick of the fight, he had read of the high mortality among tailgunners and naively decided that was where the action was. Initially, Rod Serling longed to be a tailgunner. ![]()
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