Rod Serling (December 25, 1924-June 28, 1975), was one of televisions’s most prolific writers, is best known for his science fiction television series, The Twilight Zone. He believed the role of the writer was to “menace the public conscience.”

His real name was Rodman Edward Serling and he was born in Syracuse, New York. The Serlings, a Reform Jewish family, moved in 1926 to Binghamton, New York, where Rod spent the remainder of his childhood. The Serling family was involved in the Binghamton Jewish community, and they infrequently attended synagogue except during High Holy days. At high school, where he edited the newspaper, Serling experienced anti-Semitism when he was blackballed from the Theta Sigma fraternity. In an interview in 1972 he said, “It was the first time in my life that I became aware of religious difference.” He later converted to Unitarianism.

In 1950, Serling graduated from Antioch with a degree in literature and took a job as a staff writer with a radio station WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was very motivated to become a freelance writer, he worked days for the station and spent nights writing scripts at his kitchen table. In 1952, he made enough money to quit his job at WLW, and then he focused on writing full- time and then moved to New York. He won Emmy’s for three early teleplays: Patterns, 1955; Requiem for a Heavyweight,1956; and The Comedian, 1957.

Serling quickly realized that to get a point across often meant creating scripts that contained controversial messages and dialogues. In 1959, he said, “I think it is criminal that we are not permitted to make dramatic note of social evils that exist, of controversial themes as they are inherent in our society.” He began to see that advertisers would routinely approve stories including controversial situations if they took place on fictional worlds. He then created, “The Twilight Zone” and had more artistic freedom. This was 1959-1964.

Rod Serling addressed many social issues such as prejudice within The Twilight Zone series. In the closing words to one of the episodes called “The Shelter”, he expressed what he understood to be humanity’s greatest challenge, “No moral, no message, no prophetic tract, just a simple state of fact; for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.”

In 1967, Serling said, “I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everthing I’ve written there is a thread of this: a man’s seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.”

As a writer, I think Rod Serling was a genius. I would say that most of his creative genius comes from his own personal experience with predjudice as a young boy. It obviously had a pretty deep effect on him.

He passed away from complications of heart surgery on June 28, 1975.

Twilight Zone Introduction