Rod Serling

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 In great detail and including never-published insights drawn directly from Serling’s personal correspondence, unpublished writings, speeches, and unproduced scripts, Nicholas Parisi explores Serling’s entire, massive body of work.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.

Author Biography

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.