Rod Serling was determined to create an extraordinary life for his family.
“It was brilliantly fun,” her daughter Anne Serling recently told Closer Weekly. “Simply playful, silly and fun. He would do things like disappear into the other room and come back with a screen on his head. He was a practical joker and loved anything to laugh at.
“I can remember him frequently telling a joke and getting hysterical in the middle of it, hitting his knee, losing him and unable to finish the joke,” he shared. “I guess it is the complete opposite of what you imagine.”
Serling, the television writer, producer and narrator who became best known as the host of “The Twilight Zone” and “Night Gallery,” died in 1975 at age 50 after complications after open-heart surgery, the New York Times.
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Host Rod Serling from ‘The Twilight Zone’.
(CBS photo via Getty Images)
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Anne previously published a memoir about growing up with the famous patriarch titled “How I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling”. The 65-year-old woman told the store that she wanted to make things clear about the star.
“[He has been depicted] like this dark and tortured soul, but that was not who he was, “he said.
“The Twilight Zone,” a series about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, broadcast from 1959 to 1964. Anne said Serling would be surprised to learn of the show’s enduring legacy in pop culture.
“No one would be more surprised than my father that we are still talking about ‘The Twilight Zone’ and talking about it all these decades later,” he explained. “I am not the first person to say this, but it is still in our vernacular because its problems it dealt with are still very relevant and frequent. He dealt with the human condition and things unfortunately do not change. We are still dealing with the prejudices and the mentality of the mafia and the revival of nationalism; I would be very, very sad about all of this. “
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In an off-camera moment, Rod Serling’s arm wrestles with Carol Burnett.
(CBS photo via Getty Images)
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Serling was an Army paratrooper during World War II, as well as an amateur boxer before finding fame in Hollywood, the New York Times reported. After the war, he majored in English literature and drama at Antioch College. Then, he took jobs at local radio stations where he started producing scripts. By the time he graduated, Serling had sold scripts for radio and television.
“He had not set out to be a writer; she was going to teach physical education to children because she liked working with children, but as she said, the war ended that, “said Anne.” She was quite traumatized and devastated after the war and her father died while she was also abroad. , so there was a great deal of unresolved pain.
“When he returned, he went to Antioch on the GI bill and said it was there because his brother went there, but as with so many vets, there is PTSD, which wasn’t even a term back then,” Anne shared. “It was a shell shock. But finally she changed her specialty to language and literature, because she said she had to get everything out of her guts. “
Anne admitted that it was painful to explore Serling’s time during World War II.
“One of the most difficult and painful parts of [writing the book] It was when I read the letters he wrote to his parents when he was in training camp, ”he said. “It sounds like a kid at summer camp writing chocolate and gum home. And it really broke my heart, because my son was the same age when I wrote the chapters, and I just think about how young these guys are that we send into these horrible wars and how deeply it affects them. ”
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Rod Serling with Robby the Robot.
(CBS photo via Getty Images)
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Anne said she witnessed how the war had a profound impact on the Emmy winner.
“I remember that my father had nightmares and in the morning I asked him what happened and he said he dreamed that the enemy was coming towards him,” he said. “It was part of his daily life. He was also wounded in the war, hit by shrapnel in the wrist and knee. Frequently, he would drop to his knees when going down the stairs and fall, or he would bleed spontaneously. So he not only had all the emotional wounds, but also the physical ones.
“But with the nightmares I still had, that was one of the reasons I wrote my book,” Anne revealed. “I was really tired of some people who described him having this dark and tortured soul because that was not my father. That was not who he was to his family. That was not who she was to her friends. He was brilliantly fun and even as a teenager I loved hanging out with him and my friends too. Because it was fun. He was a practical joker, he was a fool. “
Anne said that over the years, fans of “The Twilight Zone” reached out to her and described how her father had a lasting impact on their lives, one for the better.
“Some of them came from a very tumultuous childhood and remember seeing ‘The Twilight Zone’ and feeling so connected to it,” said Anne. “I hear from others who say they became writers for my father. It is truly moving to hear these lives that he touched. Many people. I had no idea, but again, how grateful I would be to know that.
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Rod Serling and his family, circa 1962.
(Photo from Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
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According to Anne, Serling was once asked what he wanted on his tombstone. Serling replied, “He left friends.” Anne said that when she was finally able to visit his grave after facing her death, someone had left a message on a piece of tape taped to a flag that said, “He left friends.”
While “The Twilight Zone” has been reinvented in Hollywood over the years, Anne said that none can compare to what her father created.
“Buck Houghton, producer of the original ‘Twilight Zone’, said … ‘Rod Serling’s key element is missing.'”
