“Light and Shadow”: A Look at Twilight Zone’s Directors

“The Twilight Zone will be directed, written, produced, and acted by television’s elite.” —Serling before TZ premiered

I focus heavily here on the writing of Rod Serling and other talented authors — and rightly so. Their imaginative scripts were the launching pad for some of the most memorable and timeless television ever filmed.

But you need more than that to create a Twilight Zone episode. To truly bring the fifth dimension to life, you need first-rate actors in front of the camera, and a top-notch crew behind it.

I couldn’t help reflecting on the crucial role played by the head of that crew, the director, when I heard that James Sheldon had died on March 12. His many credits include six TZ episodes, three of which are bona fide fan favorites: “A Penny For Your Thoughts”, “Long Distance Call” and “It’s a Good Life“.*

Rod Serling and Model Airplanes: Winging It

One of my favorite anecdotes from Anne Serling’s book:

My dad loved building model airplanes. He would sit at a wooden table and, although not very mechanically minded, assemble these tiny warplanes, gluing and painting them.

Rod Serling and Inger Stevens

His brother remembered: “I was visiting Rod in California and [he] was building a replica of the Red Baron’s Fokker triplane. He couldn’t get the glue to hold on the top wing which kept flopping. Rod finally lost his patience, threw the model on the floor and stamped it into a few hundred pieces. ‘Rod,’ I asked, ‘why the hell do you even build those things if you get so frustrated?’”