User talk:Sabiona/Sandbox2
What can I do to make this article better? Sabiona (talk) 14:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
I have added many primary sources, but there are many that I have yet to read. If you can find source information for the following, feel free to add them back to the page with proper citations.Sabiona (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Yet to be sourced:
Serling's family had a summer home on Cayuga Lake, in New York's Finger Lakes region, which inspired the name "Cayuga Productions" for use on Twilight Zone productions.
Serling had been encouraged by some of his high school teachers to continue his education beyond high school, especially in writing.
Military - Rod Serling entered in the U.S. Army in January, 1943, and with short (5'4") and slight build, he was a natural to become a paratrooper, which he volunteered for.
Serling also learned to be a demolitions specialist with the paratroopers.
This division was sent to the Pacific Theater of World War II in June 1944 (just as the Allies were invading Normandy on the other side of the world).
Serling and the 11th Airborne Division were shipped across the Pacific Ocean to take part in the Liberation of the Philippines, where they fought on the large islands of Leyte and Luzon.
When the war ended in August 1945, the 11th Airborne Division was ordered to Japan as part of the American occupying forces. Serling was sent home and was discharged from the Army in January, 1946.
During his service in World War II, he had watched while his best friend was crushed to death by a heavy supply crate that landed by parachute onto a field.
This program was a direct precursor to The Twilight Zone, and also was one of Serling's other TV scripts, Requiem for a Heavyweight.
Some of Serling's early writings included scripts for such programs as The Doctor, the Fireside Theater, the Lux Video Theatre, Suspense, and Studio One.
Biographers note that throughout his career, Serling was inspired by the legendary radio and television playwright Norman Corwin. Both men built their show business careers through the WLW-radio broadcasting station, and then to find employment at the CBS broadcasting company, one of the pioneers in the new field of television, and from there both reached the pinnacles of weaving pivotal important social themes into their TV and film scripts.
Serling's remains were interred in the Lake View Cemetery in Interlaken, New York, an area of central New York State that is featured in some of The Twilight Zone's episodes.
Styles[edit]
At the beginning of his career, just after Patterns was released, Serling gave an interview in which he stated that he preferred to write for hour-long programs rather than half hour shows because 'long plots are easier to develop'.[1][1]
Other media[edit]
In addition to writing for television Serling created for radio, Broadway, magazines, novel's and the big screen.
His most notable film success was in collaboration with Michael Wilson he created the 1968 movie adaptation of Pierre Boulle's The Planet of the Apes.
Serling wrote a number of short story adaptations of his own Twilight Zone teleplays, which were collected into three volumes of Twilight Zone stories (1960, 1961, 1962), two of Night Gallery stories (1971, 1972), and a collection of three novellas, The Season to be Wary (1968). Two of the novellas in The Season to be Wary were later adapted into episodes of the Night Gallery pilot movie. Serling also released a collection of teleplays, Patterns, in 1957. The collection included the teleplays for "Patterns," "The Rack," "Old MacDonald Had a Curve", and "Requiem For a Heavyweight".
A critical essay on Serling's fiction can be found in S. T. Joshi's book The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004). Joshi emphasises Serling's moralism and the streak of misanthropy imbuing his work, and argues that, far from being merely rewritten scripts, many of Serling's stories can stand as genuinely original and meritorious works of prose fiction.
Subsequent to The Twilight Zone, Serling moved onto cinema screens and continued to write for television. In 1964, he scripted Carol for Another Christmas, a television adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It was telecast only once, December 28, 1964, on ABC.[2]
On May 25, 1962, Serling guest starred in the episode "The Celebrity" of the CBS sitcom Ichabod and Me with Robert Sterling and George Chandler.
He wrote a number of screenplays with a political focus, including Seven Days in May (1964) about an attempted military coup against the President of the United States; Planet of the Apes (1968); and The Man (1972) about the first African American President.
In a noteworthy speech delivered at Moorpark College, Moorpark, California, on December 3, 1968, Serling criticized loyalty oaths, the Vietnam War, and social inequity.[3]
Serling had taped introductions for a limited-run summer comedy series on ABC, Keep on Truckin', which was scheduled to begin its run several weeks after his death; these introductions were subsequently edited out of the broadcast episodes. He also wrote the pilot episode for a short-lived Aaron Spelling series called The New People in 1969. Also in 1969, Serling hosted a short-lived syndicated game show, Liar's Club.
In 1973 Serling's teleplay Storm In Summer was adapted for the theater. It premiered in San Diego's Off-Broadway Theatre and starred Sam Jaffe, Edd Burns and Patty McCormack. It was directed by James Burrows. Although there were plans to bring the show to Broadway, that never happened.
Serling returned to radio in 1974 as the host of a new mystery/adventure series called The Zero Hour.[4] The show aired for two years and Serling wrote several of the scripts. It failed to find a large audience due to its radio serial format and lack of promotion.[5]
Late in his life, Serling taught at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York where he resided for many years, and did voiceovers for various projects. He narrated documentaries featuring French undersea explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and (uncredited) performed the narration for the beginning of the Brian De Palma film Phantom of the Paradise (1974).
Serling also appeared posthumously in Michael Jackson's song "Threatened".
Literary influence[edit]
In addition to a sub-genre based specifically on the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling had an influence on literature itself.
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1997) was set in the Warsaw Ghetto, a science-fiction remake of A Town Has Turned to Dust (1998), and A Storm in Summer (2000) followed.
- ^ a b Shanley, J. P. "Notes on Patterns'". New York Times; Feb 6, 1955; pg. X15. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2006)
- ^ Vinciguerra, Thomas. [1] "Marley Is Dead, Killed in a Nuclear War", The New York Times, December 20, 2007.
- ^ [2] "Controversy at Moorpark College"
- ^ The Zero Hour Radio Log
- ^ Judge, Dick. Hollywood Radio Theater: Zero Hour
Requiem for a Heavyweight, like Patterns, was honored as a milestone in television drama. This episode's producer, Martin Manulis, noted in a TV biography of Serling by PBS that after the live broadcast, the chairman of CBS-TV, William S. Paley, called the control room to tell the crew there that this show had advanced TV programming by 10 years. The show's director, Ralph Nelson, wrote and directed a television drama four years later for the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse about writing Requiem for a Heavyweight called The Man in the Funny Suit, in which Serling appeared as himself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabiona (talk • contribs) 19:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)