Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination

Nicholas Parisi

ISBN 10: 1496817508 / ISBN 13: 9781496817501

Published by University of Mississippi Press, Jackson, MS, 2018

About this Item

A fine, fresh, unread as-new copy in equally fine dust jacket. First printing stated. Hardcover. xiv+ 541 pp. Illustrated with photos and reproductions. Introduction by Anne Serling (daughter of Rod Serling). The definitive biography as well a videography and critical analysis, of American screenwriter and television producer Rod Serling (1924-1975). Serling was a native of Syracuse, New York, served in the Army World War II in the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment (as a technician not a jumper though his Division saw combat and Serling was wounded in Leyte), and after the war attended Antioch College in Ohio on the G.I,Bill. At Antioch he began writing and producing campus radio programs and in the summer of 1946 volunteered at New York City's WNYC as an actor and writer. He began his professional writing career in 1950 and moved from radio to television writing with WKRC-TV in Cincinnati. He began to gain fame when in 1955 the nationwide-broadcast Kraft Television Theater televised one of his scripts. He became best known for his TV series "The Twilight Zone" that ran from 1959 to 1964 and the 156 episodes continue in reruns today, a number of the episodes now considered iconic. The science fiction/fantasy format helped the show avoid censorship issues.

Seller Inventory # E33690

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination
• Publisher: University of Mississippi Press, Jackson, MS
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496817508
• ISBN 13: 9781496817501
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Entertainment

About this title

Synopsis

Long before anyone had heard of alien cookbooks, gremlins on the wings of airplanes, or places where pig-faced people are considered beautiful, Rod Serling was the most prestigious writer in American television. As creator, host, and primary writer for The Twilight Zone, Serling became something more: an American icon. When Serling died in 1975, at the age of fifty, he was the most honored, most outspoken, most recognizable, and likely the most prolific writer in television history.

Though best known for The Twilight Zone, Serling wrote over 250 scripts for film and television and won an unmatched six Emmy Awards for dramatic writing for four different series. His filmography includes the acclaimed political thriller Seven Days in May and cowriting the original Planet of the Apes.

In great detail and including never-published insights drawn directly from Serling’s personal correspondence, unpublished writings, speeches, and unproduced scripts, Nicholas Parisi explores Serling’s entire, massive body of work. With a foreword by Serling’s daughter, Anne Serling, Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination is part biography, part videography, and part critical analysis. It is a painstakingly researched look at all of Serling’s work―in and out of The Twilight Zone.

About the Author

Nicholas Parisi serves as president of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Rod Serling’s legacy. He is a former staff writer and editor for Good Times magazine in Long Island. He has appeared on several television series, radio shows, and podcasts, including CBS’s Inside Edition, Coast to Coast AM, and Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast. He is also an accomplished musician and vocalist, having performed on stage hundreds of times. In 2010, his former band, Arioch, released a CD with the Serling-inspired title Between Light and Shadow on Retrospect Records.