Award-winning television writer Rod Serling “would be humbled, honored, and happy to come home again,” says his daughter, Anne Serling, about the Ohio Historical Marker to be unveiled this fall in Yellow Springs.
Serling, who wrote Requiem For A Heavyweight and created The Twilight Zone, studied language and literature at Antioch College in Yellow Springs. After graduating in June 1950, Serling began his professional writing career at Cincinnati WLW radio and television, and wrote his first TV dramas for WKRC-TV’s The Storm anthology series in 1951-52.
The historical marker — to be located outside One Morgan Place, where he taught — coincides with the 50th anniversary of Serling’s death. He suffered a fatal heart attack during open heart surgery on June 28, 1975. He was 50.
Four years at Antioch College was a huge influence on Serling. He enrolled in 1946, at 21, on the GI Bill after serving in World War II in the Philippines. The New York native chose Antioch because his brother Bob, a novelist (The President’s Plane Is Missing), studied there. He met his wife there, student Carol Kramer from Columbus. And he switched majors from physical education to language and literature.
Scott Sanders, Antioch College archivist, says the application for the Ohio History Connection marker said:
“A lifelong sports enthusiast, Serling studied physical education at first, but, describing himself as ‘bitter about everything,’ he ‘turned to writing to get it off my chest.’ He was in the ideal environment for this cathartic revelation. ‘The seeds of his strongly felt convictions, understanding of human nature and ability to see beyond the obvious were nourished at Antioch and would become the trademarks of his work,’ said his daughter, writer Anne Serling.”
Anne Serling, who plans to attend the unveiling later this year, says her father once said “the freedom to speak, the freedom to reason, and above all, the right to question — this I think is tradition at Antioch.”
Serling wrote for The Storm, Cincinnati's first live, half-hour drama, as a freelancer in the evenings after coming home from writing everything but drama — travel shows, sitcoms, skits and "continuity" patter Midwestern Hayride, Melody Showcase and Straw Hat Matinee — for WLW radio and television.
For The Storm (1951-52) Serling first wrote about themes which would permeate The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and his teleplays for network TV's live 1950s drama in the Golden Age of Television: time travel, prize-fighting, prejudice, and the horrors of war.
Some of his half-hour scripts for The Storm were rewritten and expanded by Serling for network TV in the 1950s. “The Time Element,” broadcast on The Storm in 1951, was reworked into The Twilight Zone pilot broadcast on Desilu Playhouse on Nov. 10, 1958.
Serling quit WLW in December 1951. He freelanced for the live network TV dramas based in New York from his home on Long Lane in Springfield Township before moving his family to Connecticut in 1954. He expanded “The Twilight Rounds,” his 1952 boxing drama, into CBS’ Requiem for a Heavyweight, which won the first Peabody Award for TV writing and an Emmy Award in 1957. “No Gods to Serve” and “Mr. Finchley vs. The Bomb” from The Storm aired on NBC before the Serlings moved to Los Angeles to launch The Twilight Zone on Oct. 2, 1959.
When CBS canceled the half-hour version of The Twilight Zone in spring of 1962, a fatigued 37-year-old Serling agreed to return to Antioch to teach “Drama in the Mass Media” and other courses for six months. He was “desperate for a change of scene” and looking for “a chance to exhale,” Anne Serling wrote in her book, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling. Rod, Carol, and their two daughters packed up the dogs, cats, and pet rats and flew to Ohio. Anne was enrolled in second grade in Yellow Springs, and her sister Jodi in the fifth grade.
But the respite was brief. CBS changed plans and renewed The Twilight Zone as a one-hour series. Serling also was asked by director John Frankenheimer to adapt the bestseller, Seven Days in May, as a screenplay.
Anne Serling tells me she liked living in the small town, and being able to walk home from school for lunch. “However, I desperately missed my dad when he had to travel back to L.A.” to work on The Twilight Zone, she said.
Rod Serling’s career will be celebrated during the third annual Yellow Springs Film Festival Oct. 2-5. The schedule will be announced in July.
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