Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone/a Biography [Hardcover]

Joel Engel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1989

Here is the Rod Sterling the public never knew, the man whose darker side of success eventually overshadowed his life. This powerful biography contains never-before-seen personal photographs. 24 photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

It is Engel's thesis that Serling's early live TV dramas, Requiem for a Heavyweight and Patterns , ecstatically received by the critics who pronounced Serling the Arthur Miller of TV, dogged Serling for the rest of his prolific career in TV, movies, stage, and prose. Driven by his twin fierce demons of ambition and insecurity, he became mired in the "velvet alley" of Hollywood, writing too fast (actually, dictating his scripts and rarely revising) on too many projects, so that The Twilight Zone (156 episodes, 1959-64, most of which he scripted) became his tomb. He ended his career in the knowing ignominy of commercials and game shows. If Serling never becomes the intended tragic figure in this unincisive but interesting first biography, still Engel is adept at dissecting the deficiencies of the scripts and revealing the extreme, often petty, censorship power wielded by networks and especially sponsors and ad agencies in the so-called "Golden Age" of TV.
- David Bartholomew, NYPL
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 353 pages
• Publisher: Contemporary Books; 1ST edition (October 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809245388
• ISBN-13: 978-0809245383
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #223,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Odd For Engel To Write A Bio Of Someone He Clearly Doesn't Like, September 8, 2005

By 

Andrew Salmon (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone/a Biography (Hardcover)

This is the second Rod Serling biography I've read and it is terrible! Engel claims to be a fan of Serling's work but the entire book is just a lame depiction of Serling, claiming that any good idea he ever had was stolen from someone else. Serling the man is also depicted as a bumbling, inept, insecure fool without an ounce of integrity. Perhaps this biased, negative approach stems from the fact that Engel is a journalist and the media tends to fixate on the "sexy" underbelly of life.

Also, it's surprising how little Engel knows about the fiction writing process. It's the writer's job to take what is going on around him or her and spin it into a tale, but whenever Serling is shown doing this, he is stealing. Well, as Mark Twain said: "Good writers borrow, great writers steal." The legendary Max Brand used to say: "When reading a story, stop halfway through, figure out how the thing will end, write a new beginning to support your ending and, boom, you have a story." Is this stealing or is this being inspired. As a writer myself, the latter is the right explanation. How Engel misses this, I don't know.

At any rate, this is a poor exploration of Serling's life, written in a style that fails to captivate. There are better books on Serling. Avoid this one and read those.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Marvelously readable look at a true American original, July 27, 2008

By 

Tommy O.C. (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone/a Biography (Hardcover)

I'm a professional writer, also, and I think that this biography does not rate the slams it has inexplicably received. The author claims that Serling was sued more than once for plagiarizing the works of other sci-fi writers, including the great Ray Bradbury. Engel does not castigate Serling for this. He points out that Serling was a voracious reader, the ultimate workaholic, who wrote approximately half of all Twilight Zone episodes (an amazing output). Engel feels that if Serling did plagiarize at times, he did so inadvertantly. Even one of the Twilight Zone's main contributors admits that writers such as Ray Bradbury left "big footprints" and that it was difficult was any sci-fi writer who came after him not to pick up some of his ideas.

Case in point, the episode "Nothing in the Dark," featuring a very young Robert Redford as a wounded police officer calling out for help to the only person who can hear him--an old woman who has shut herself up in her apartment because she fears death and keeping the door close will keep death from catching her. She even orders her groceries and refuses to open the door until she's sure the delivery boy has left (in case death is coming in the guise of a delivery boy). Well, Bradbury wrote a short story that has exactly this premise, including the manner in which she gets her groceries. This is what Engel is referring to.

Rod Serling was an incredibly gifted man, who had a winning personality. But, like anyone else, he had flaws and fears, and Engels addresses these.

That's why this is called a b-i-o-g-r-a-p-h-y.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buy This Book if You Think Rod Serling Was Guilty Plagiarism., July 26, 2011

By 

Dodaddy "Rocker" (Indiana) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone/a Biography (Hardcover)

This is another work done by an author who obviously did it only for the money. While the book does have some interesting points, the rest is accusatory of Rod Serling, being a talent less hack that only becomes famous by sheer luck and modest talent. In addition, Engel is of the camp that Serling was a plagiarist and constantly stole others work and published them as his own. Engel's constantly uses one specific pattern to abject monotony throughout this book; say something good about the man, and then immediately butcher him thereafter. As a writer, I understand the need to tell the whole story. But I am also keen to realize when an author isn't interested in his or her subject but for any other reason other than to sensationalize only the perceived bad, while only modestly telling of the subjects greatness. Furthermore, Engel's does not back up all these tales of Serling being pathetic and theft-prone, only taking 'word of mouth' accounts by those who obviously had an axe to grind, while ignoring Serling as the great writer he so obviously was. Engel's gave no benefit of the doubt. The crime committed here is, Engel's obviously did not like Serling as much as he claimed and sacrificed Serling's great contributions to our world, for his own love of money. A subject Serling himself covered in depth at different times in his life. Engel's calls Serling a thief and a sellout, all the while trying hard to sullying his reputation. This book goes a long way in trying to tarnish, unsuccessfully, I might add, Rod Serling's reputation. I found it disgusting that in the end of the book, Engel's tries to vindicate himself, by then speaking with respect and reverence about the man he spent endless chapters promoting libel against. Joel Engel, a journalist, should stick to writing news columns about the criminous acts of others and leave those he would butcher, such as Serling, to the real investigative writers who know the process and art of biography.