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Friday, July 08, 2005
ENTER THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Tribute to Serling
Ithaca College, where Serling once taught, is planning a scholarly conference on Serling's contributions to narrative television, which officials hope will get under way later this year.
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Serling was born in Syracuse on Christmas Day 1924 and grew up in Binghamton. References to area communities, such as Ithaca and Binghamton, showed up in several episodes of "The Twilight Zone."
He quickly tired of "the scene" in New York City and Los Angeles and decided to move back to central New York, Novac said. In the late 1960s he moved to a property in Interlaken, on Cayuga Lake, north of Ithaca. Novac said Serling appreciated the fact that around town he was treated like "a regular Ithacan."
Serling, who suffered a heart attack while mowing his lawn on a summer day 30 years ago, died in a Rochester hospital and is buried in Interlaken.
From 1967 to 1975, he taught communications courses and gave lectures at Ithaca College. Today, the college maintains a Rod Serling archive among its special collections and archives. That collection is mostly made up of scripts from "The Twilight Zone," including film of about 80 percent of the show's episodes.
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