Rod Serling

Age: 50 (passed away Jun. 28th, 1975)
Height: 5' 4"

Birth Place: Syracuse, New York, USA
Born: Dec. 25th, 1924

+ Add to My Celebs

Rod Serling's Main TV Roles

Show	Character(s)
The Twilight Zone (1959)	Narrator
Night Gallery	Host
The Match Game	Rod Serling
Fractured Flickers	Rod Serling
Hollywood Talent Scouts	Rod Serling
Ichabod and Me	Eugene Holl…

NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at IMDB

BIOGRAPHY:

A former boxer, paratrooper and general all-around angry young man, Rod Serling was one of the radical new voices that made the "Golden Age" of television. Long before "The Twilight Zone" (1959), he was known for writing such high-quality scripts as "Patterns" and "Requiem for a Heavyweight," both later turned into films (Patterns (1956) and Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)). Even "The Twilight Zone" (1959) featured forays into controversial grounds like racism, Cold War paranoia and the horrors of war. His maverick attitude eventually drove him from regular network television.

TRIVIA:

Towards the end of his career, he narrated several documentaries about sharks and other underwater life that were shown a lot, at the time, in schools.
Host of the syndicated radio show "The Zero Hour" (1973-1974).
On June 28, 1975, he was mowing his lawn, when all of a sudden, he began to experience some chest pains, and collapsed. His neighbor found him and called the ambulance. When he arrived in the operating room, the doctors saw that the artery leading to his heart was disintegrating and there was no hope for him. He died later that day in the hospital.
Suffered from combat-related flashbacks and insomnia.
Robert Marshall Hosfeldt authored a 1961 MA Thesis at San Jose State College called "Analysis of the techniques and content of characterization in the Academy Award winning plays of Rod Serling." 'Academy,' in this case, referred to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
He usually dictated his scripts into a tape recorder and had his secretary type them up.
Ranked #1 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (1 August 2004 issue), the only real person on the list. All the others are TV show characters.
In 1994, 19 years after his death, he returned to "host" the pre-show area of "The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror" attraction at The Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park in Orlando, Florida. Through clever use of carefully edited vintage _"The Twilight Zone" (1959)_ (qv) footage, new footage processed in black & white and special additional dialogue recorded by a Serling soundalike (reportedly selected personally by Serling's widow, Carol), Serling appears in a "Twilight Zone" episode based on the ride's storyline and introduces theme park visitors to the attraction. This brief introduction, which is shown on a special vintage television in the attraction's pre-show area, represents the first "new" introduction of "The Twilight Zone" that he appears in since the series' end in 1964.