“Who’s your best friend, Pops?”
“You are, Dad.”
Anne Serling’s As I knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling is part-biography and part-moving memoir about her father. In it, she takes readers on a journey of overcoming grief and along the way, she seeks to demystify audiences of the image we have come to know of the dapper, erudite gentleman-host of The Twilight Zone, as instead we get to glimpse a view of the man behind the curtain. Serling’s reflections, memories, and memorabilia included in this memoir are superb as she gently invites readers to consider for her father’s life, from his service in the 11th Airborne Division during World War II, the 511th (she describes this chapter in Rod’s life as a period of absolutely brutal combat in the Philippines) to his bicoastal success following a burgeoning radio career for WLW before moving to his now-legendary career in television with shows like The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, and finally, the book concludes with his tragic, untimely passing due to a genetic predisposition exacerbated by decades of smoking.
On the front-end, I was interested to learn about Serling’s familial background. Rod’s mother, Esther, was born in Lithuania, and her father, Meyer Cooper, initially came to the United States after leaving behind a wife and nine children back in Eastern Europe, escaping famine and religious persecution. He worked as a scrap metal seller, covering the roads of Cayuga and Onondaga Counties between Auburn and Syracuse in upstate New York. He later opened a meat market which allowed the funds for his wife and children to come to America; later he opened a chain of grocery stores. Rod fondly remembered his mother as an elegant, matronly woman not unlike Margaret Dumont, the aristocratic foil-character who appeared in nearly all of the Marx Brothers films. Rod’s father was born in Detroit, his father Isaac had moved to Detroit from Russia, he married a fifteen-year-old girl named Anna, and in the years to come, he moved to Syracuse where he opened a junk business.
Rod’s parents –Sam and Esther– traveled to Panama as newlyweds for a couple years before returning to Syracuse where Esther had a very difficult birth due to yellow fever. They believed she would never be able to bear a second child (especially after the stillbirth of daughter a few years later), but then on Christmas Day (December 25, 1924) Rodman Edward Serling was born. From the get-go he was described as a good-looking, extroverted, lad with tremendous energy. From there, the family moved from Syracuse to Binghamton.
I was particularly struck by Anne Serling’s wonderful panorama of Rod’s early life in Binghamton and how it seems to compare with his seminal episode of The Twilight Zone “Walking Distance” –she describes his first job working in a toy store (the owner wrote to Rod’s parents “Roddy: nice kid, but plays with the toys too much”), his time spent at the Lyric Theater (located at 102 Washington Avenue), and Chenango Street which once featured long lines of young men waiting to enlist in the U.S. Army for World War II (one of whom was eighteen-year-old Rod), his father’s grocery store called “Serling’s Wholesale Market” located at 117 Washington Street, and of course the Serling family home at 1324 Madison Street. Much of Rod’s life and childhood are depicted in a series of loving letters between Rod and his childhood friend Julian “Julie” Golden, as well as letters exchanged with Rod’s family members. Speaking of “Walking Distance,” Anne Serling recounts the famous story of George Johnson, co-founder of the shoe manufacturer Endicott-Johnson, who decided to donate six carousels to local parks with his only requirement being that money would never be charged to the local children to ride them (one of the carousels was placed in Recreation Park in Binghamton, which later served as the key inspiration for “Walking Distance”).
There are many other wonderful anecdotes in this memoir –too many to list here– but some involve Rod’s strong rejection of racial/ethnic discrimination (his Jewish heritage comes up from time to time throughout his life as a motivating factor in this regard). Serling describes her father’s lively schooling at Binghamton Central High School, Antioch College, and later his teaching career at Antioch and Ithaca College. During his war years, we are confronted with a dramatic moment in the Battles of Leyte in which a Japanese soldier jumps out of the jungle with his gun drawn, pointed directly at Rod (Rod’s friend Richard then quickly shoots the enemy soldier and saves Rod’s life). It was a terrifying experience for Rod. Additionally, Rod suffered a terrible shrapnel wound that damaged his wrist and knee (his leg would frequently give him trouble for the rest of his life, often frightening the family when his knee would suddenly give out, and preventing him from sleeping). Rod would sometimes scream in the night, fearing Japanese soldiers were closing in on him. He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his service. Among the many sad moments in the story, Rod’s own father died at a young age of a heart attack while Rod was away during World War II; Rod was denied leave from the military to grieve with his family (at the time, his squad was preparing to invade Tokyo in what was sure to be an absolute massacre with very few, if any, expected to survive. Days later, the atom bombs were dropped and Rod was one of the few paratroopers who returned home from his squad). He wore his paratrooper bracelets for the rest of his life (they can often be seen in his television appearances), even though his war experiences left him deeply embittered in many respects. He later returned to the Philippines in what is described as a ghostly trip, now as a tourist, with few friends there to reminisce with him about his old war memories. This was a particularly haunting chapter in the book. Anne Serling describes her father’s turn to writing as a result of his war experiences as he switched from studying physical education to language and literature at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He often typed his stories with two fingers on a typewriter, later dictating and sometimes acting out various roles for his secretary to type up (this was the case for many of his The Twilight Zone scripts). His friendship with Earl Hamner pops up from time to time in the book, as well as stories about his top-notch scripts that were featured elsewhere aside from The Twilight Zone, such as “Patterns,” “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” “Noon on Doomsday,” and “In the Presence of Mine Enemies” among many others. One side of Serling that rarely seems to across on television was his endearing, goofy, fun-loving demeanor as a father (his nicknames for his daughter Anne included “Pops” “Grumple” “Nan” “Bunny” and so on); he was a great lover of animals, table tennis, watching The Flintstones with his daughters, however he hated the show Hogan’s Heroes which he felt overly-sanitized the horrors of the Nazi regime. His sudden, devastating passing at the age of 50 in 1975 happened on the eighth floor of the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York –a tearjerker of an ending to this book about an extraordinary life. There are hundreds of other amusing, charming, sad, and haunting tales recounted in this memoir, some through letters, others as distant memories.
As I knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling is a splendid memoir that comes highly recommended from me for fans of The Twilight Zone as well as general fans of “TV’s Angry Young Man” Rod Serling.
Serling, Anne. As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling. Citadel Press, Kensington Publishing Corp, New York, New York, 2013.
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I agree. Hope she’s at the Fest!