The papers span the length of Rod Serling's prolific writing career. Particularly well
documented is his work in television, including his writings for several anthologies during
the 1950s and for The Twilight Zone, one of his most popular
works. The collection has been arranged into 10 series: General Subject File; Anthologies;
Motion Pictures - Produced; Motion Pictures - Unproduced; Radio; Television Series - Produced;
Television Specials - Produced; Television - Unproduced; Theater; and Dictabelts. The
Dictabelts series are further arranged by: Correspondence; Miscellaneous; Motions Pictures -
Produced; Motion Pictures - Unproduced; Speeches; Television - Produced; Television -
Unproduced; Theater; Writings - Published; Writings - Unpublished.
The bulk of the GENERAL SUBJECT FILE consists of correspondence, although financial
records, articles, speeches, reports, press releases, agreements, clippings, minutes, and
miscellany. Also included is a film of several public service announcements narrated by
Serling, an audio recording of a lecture, and some photographs. Serling's original filing
system was retained wherever possible.
General Correspondence includes fan mail, letters offering ideas for scripts, letters from
persons desiring literary and financial assistance, business letters pertaining to
productions, and Serling's replies. Letters relating to many of his television plays show
his efforts to sell his scripts, his opinions on casting, and his observations on network
censorship of his scripts. The Twilight Zone fan mail and
script rejections are also included in this section. Personal Correspondence consists of
those communications originally filed by Serling as “Personal” or
“Personal Business” and includes correspondence from friends and family. The
Publicity file also contains materials on The Twilight Zone.
Writings contain several of Serling's works which did not fall into other series
classifications. Included are several of his college writing assignments and various
magazine and newspaper articles. The Television files are composed of miscellaneous notes,
ideas, and fragments for unidentified television programs.
The folder entitled “Angry Letters” includes correspondence from Harry Ruby
(March 10 and March 11, 1964) and Groucho Marx (March 10, 1964) congratulating Serling for
his letter to the Los Angeles Times in which he criticized
Morrie Ryskind for the inconsistencies of his defense of the political right. Other
correspondence in this file comments on the Kennedy assassination, Robert Welch, and the
John Birch Society. Serling's term as “writer in residence” at Antioch College
is documented in the file of that name and contains his critiques of his students' papers.
The Ashley Famous Agency file illustrates his relationship with his publicity agent and the
agency's efforts to schedule Serling's appearances on various television programs.
Problems with network program practices over an Adventures in
Paradise script are revealed in the Censorship file. The Columbia Broadcasting
System (CBS) file documents Serling's relationship with the network, specifically regarding
The Twilight Zone's production problems and Serling's
desire for autonomy in script selection. Also discussed is the network's desire for more
“action” in The Loner scripts, a request which
Serling perceived as a demand for violence. The folder on Commercials details his
involvement with advertisements, as he both appeared in and narrated ads for several
products, companies, and causes. The Famous Artist-Famous Writers Schools file includes a
transcript of a Federal Trade Commission hearing investigating the organization and
Serling's statement defending the mailorder school. The file about the Federal
Communications Commission Hearing, convened because of a series of incidents that included
quiz show scandals, violence on the airwaves, and charges that sponsors exerted too much
control on television programming, discusses the responsibilities of television
broadcasting.
Financial Records contain information on both Serling's business and personal affairs.
Included are financial statements and income tax returns of Cayuga Productions Inc., his
production company, and some personal income tax returns. The Foreign Television Network
file details negotiations for airing Serling's works in countries such as England, the
Netherlands, Australia, Germany, Israel, and the former Czechoslovakia. Contained in the
Foster Parents Plan is Serling's incoming and outgoing correspondence with his Korean foster
child, Su Pan Ki. The William Freedman file includes general accounting information about
the sale of syndication rights, stocks, and bonds, and the establishment of his children's
trust funds.
ANTHOLOGIES includes several short stories Serling submitted to Bantam Books for
publication plus drafts of several of his published works. These include Stories from “The Twilight Zone”, More Stories from “The Twilight Zone”, and The Season to be Wary.
The MOTION PICTURES - PRODUCED series includes treatments, scripts, revisions, and
occasional correspondence for such films as Advance to the
Rear, Assault on a Queen, Incident in an Alley, Planet of the Apes, R.P.M. (Revolutions Per Minute), Requiem
for a Heavyweight, Seven Days in May, 633 Squadron, and The Yellow
Canary. Also included is a film for the pilot of the NBC series Night Gallery. A separate series for MOTION PICTURES - UNPRODUCED
follows. Arrangement for each series is alphabetical by title.
RADIO contains several of Serling's early scripts which he wrote for Cincinnati-area
stations in the early 1950s.
TELEVISION SERIES - PRODUCED is the largest portion of the collection. The general
arrangement is alphabetical by program title and thereunder alphabetical by episode title.
The exception is The Twilight Zone, which is arranged
chronologically by air date. The file contains synopses, outlines, scripts, revisions, plus
occasional press releases, correspondence, and research materials. Additional subject files
on censorship, fan clubs, production, sponsors, publicity, and reports on finances,
production and script progress included for The Twilight
Zone. Researchers are cautioned that complete production information is not always
available. Also, the “produced” and “unproduced” designations at
times were made on the basis of incomplete information at the time of processing and may not
be correct.
Among the television programs documented are The Armstrong Circle
Theatre, The Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, Climax, The Hallmark Hall of Fame,
Kraft Theatre, The Loner,
Lux Video Theatre, Motorola
Television Hour, the Night Gallery pilot, Playhouse 90, Rod Serlings's Wonderful
World of..., Studio One, The
Twilight Zone, and The United States Steel Hour.
Some of Serling's notable works that are included are “Champion,” “The
Blues for Joey Menotti,” “Patterns,” “The Return of Socko
Renard,” “In the Presence of Mine Enemies,” “The Rank and
File,” “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” “A Town Has Turned to
Dust,” “The Arena,” and “The Rack.” Unless otherwise noted,
Serling is presumed to have authored the scripts. Scripts for television series may also be
found in the TELEVISION – UNPRODUCED series, including some for The
Hallmark Hall of Fame, Kraft Theatre, and The Twilight Zone. Additional television materials can be found in
the TELEVISION SPECIALS - PRODUCED and TELEVISION - UNPRODUCED series.
The TELEVISION SPECIALS - PRODUCED includes drafts to a teleplay for Robert Louis
Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1968), and an updated version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas
Carol.
THEATER contains scripts and miscellaneous correspondence for I Knew
Joey, The Killing Season (which Serling considered
to be one of his best works), Noon on Doomsday, and Requiem for a Heavyweight.
The DICTABELTS SERIES, 1965-1969, consists of all of the audio in the collection, with the
exception of a lecture given at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1964, which is filed
under the GENERAL SUBJECT FILE. The 1,165 dictabelt recordings document Serling's work on
produced and unproduced television series, made-for-TV movies, theatrically released films,
stage productions, and short stories for publications, as well as correspondence and
speeches.
Serling began dictating scripts and correspondence early in his television career. Marjorie
(Marge) Langsford, Serling's longtime secretary, would transcribe the recordings for him to
review. He often wrote multiple versions of the same story, under different names, before
finalizing the drafts under one title. These drafts include both new material as well as
revisions.
Fifteen of the dictabelts were digitized in 2013 and the remaining 1,150 belts were
digitized in 2018 through a grant from the Recordings at Risk program administered by CLIR
(Council on Library and Information Resources) and funded by The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. The digitized files are available to all researchers for onsite listening only
at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. No copies can be made of the
recordings without express written permission of the Serling estate.
The Correspondence recordings consists of letters pertaining to both professional matters
and family concerns such as car insurance and home renovations. Serling also included lists
of errands and assignments for Marge Lansford. There are a number of dictabelts that contain
one or two letters along with revisions for various projects Serling was working on.
Correspondence of note includes letters to Desi Arnaz, Stanley Kramer, and Aaron
Spelling.
The recordings concerning Motion Pictures - Produced consists of revisions for two film
screenplays Serling worked on: Assault on a Queen (1966) and
R.P.M. (1970).
Assault on a Queen was based on the novel of the same title
by Jack Finney. The film was directed by Jack Donohue and starred Frank Sinatra, Virna Lisi,
Anthony Franciosa and Richard Conte. There are paper copies of script revisions for the film
in the paper portion of the collection under the series MOTION PICTURES PRODUCED.
R.P.M. (Revolutions Per Minute) was directed by Stanley
Kramer. Serling worked on the script for the first six months of 1969. The project had the
following titles during the time Serling worked on it: “Children's Crusade,”
“Ivy Rebellion,” “19 October,” “The Stanley Kramer
Project,” “The Hostiles,” and “Hell Week.” In the end,
Serling's script was not used and Erich Segal was credited as the screenwriter. According to
a note on the dictabelt, the letter to Kramer concerning the project was never sent.
Correspondence and various drafts of Serling's screenplay can be found in in the paper
portion of the collection under the series MOTION PICTURES PRODUCED.
The recordings under Motion Pictures - Unproduced includes screenplays for several proposed
film adaptations of novels: Bodo, an adaptation of the novel The
Shamir of Dachau / by Christopher Davis (see paper portion of collection for
correspondence and script); "Devil in Paradise" based on
the novel Shadow of Thunder / by Max Evans, and "Gresham's People" based on the novel The Last Revolution / by Edward Plunkett, Baron Dunsany.
"Hosts of Yorksboro," also unproduced, concerns a black
man named Sam Giles who is injured while saving sixteen children. The community rallies
around Giles before eventually pushing him out of town. The story examines a multitude of
topics including employment, unions, race, and police attitudes towards demonstrations.
Material pertaining to this story in the Rod Serling Archive at the Ithaca College Archives
and Special Collections, under the title In Praise of Sammy.
No information can be found concerning the unpublished story entitled "McGowan Furlough"/Next of
Kin.
The Speeches in the collection were given by Serling to a variety of audiences including
universities, professional organizations, and the 89th Airborne Association. There is also a
recording of a lecture in the GENERAL SUBJECT FILE series in the paper portion of the
collection, on the role of the creative writer in television.
Television - Produced documents four made-for-TV movies and four TV shows Serling worked
on. Two of the four made-for-TV movies, The Doomsday Flight
and A Storm in Summer used scripts written by Serling. The
scripts Serling wrote for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, and The President's Plane is Missing, based
on the novel written by his brother Robert J. Serling, were ultimately not used when the
made-for-TV movies were produced.
There is one dictabelt with material for Serling's short lived 1965-1966 series The Loner which starred Lloyd Bridges. The scripts for Night
Gallery are for the pilot episode – specifically for the story “Eyes” and for an
unused story concerning the hanging of a man by a corrupt judge. The
New People was a series developed by Serling that only ran for seventeen episodes
from September 1969-January 1970. The audio in the collection consists of drafts for the
pilot and a letter to producer Aaron Spelling. There are also revisions for an episode of
the anthology series Insight for the episode Serling wrote
entitled “The Hate Syndrome.”
Television - Unproduced consists of scripts for three made-for-TV movies dating from 1966
and 1969. Two of the three, Homeland and A Walk in the March Rain, were written as potential specials
sponsored by Xerox. Nothing is known about the sponsorship for The
Senior Citizen Caper.
Serling wrote a number plays found in the Theater recordings (see also the paper portion of
the collection). The only one represented in the audio portion of the collection is The Killing Season which was produced in 1968.
Besides writing for the stage and screen, Serling also wrote short stories and anthologies.
Writings Published primarily documents the three stories included in the book The Season to Be Wary: “The Escape Route,”
“Color Scheme” (based on a story by Sammy Davis Jr.) and “Eyes.”
Also included is a short story called “An Odyssey, or, Whatever You Call It,
Concerning Baseball” was originally intended for Playboy
Magazine. A handwritten note on the copy under the ANTHOLOGIES series in the paper
portion of the collection, indicates it was going to be published by Bantam Books. It was
finally published in Carol Serling's More Stories from the
“Twilight Zone” published in 2010.
Writings - Unpublished consists of revisions for an unpublished novel entitled X Number of Days.
