Television writer and producer Rod Serling was born Rodman Edward Serling on December 25, 1924, to a Jewish family in Syracuse, New York. When Serling was 2 years old, he and his family moved to the quiet college town of Binghamton, where his dad opened a grocery store.
After graduating from Binghamton High School, Serling enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, with the aim of fighting the Nazis in Europe. Contrary to his intention, he ended up becoming a paratrooper in the Pacific theater. During the war, Serling was injured in his knee and wrist at the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines. He was sent home with a Purple Heart and emotional battle scars that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
To compound matters, Serling's return from the war was followed by the devastating loss of his father, who died suddenly of a heart attack. His traumatic experiences would later serve as inspiration for his writing. After the war, Serling attended Antioch College in Ohio.
Television Writer and Producer
In 1948, Serling moved to New York City and entered the work world as a struggling freelance radio writer. In 1955, he branched out into television script writing with the TV business drama Patterns. Patterns earned Serling his first Emmy Award.
Serling's second Emmy win came a year later, with the 1956 production of Requiem for a Heavyweight, starring Jack Palance. During the late 1950s, Serling fought the CBS network when they insisted on editing his controversial scripts. CBS got its way and heavily revised his script about lynching, entitled A Town Has Turned to Dust, and another about corruption in a labor union, called The Rank and File. Instead of continuing to fight inevitable censorship, in 1959 Serling turned from realism to the sci-fi fantasy genre, with the iconic series The Twilight Zone. Not only did Serling write the series, but he was also the face of it, serving as its on-screen narrator. The Twilight Zone ran until 1964 and garnered Serling his third Emmy.
Source: https://www.biography.com/writer/rod-serling
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