
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 19, 1994                   TAG: 9405190125
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ITHACA, N.Y.                                LENGTH: Medium

SERLING ARCHIVE SERVED AS CATALYST FOR TV MOVIE

Submitted for your approval: two unproduced stories, forgotten for decades, now finally coming to television 20 years after the man who wrote them died and 30 years after his TV show was canceled.

It can only happen ... in ``The Twilight Zone.''

Doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo.

Rod Serling's widow, Carol, found the stories two years ago as she packed up some of her husband's possessions to send to the Rod Serling Archive at Ithaca College.

They will be televised tonight on CBS as ``Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics.''

``The Theater'' is a 30-minute story based on an outline by Serling and made into a teleplay by Richard Matheson, a veteran ``Twilight Zone'' writer. ``Where The Dead Are'' is a 90-minute movie from a screenplay Serling finished just before he died in 1975.

Serling was the creator of ``The Twilight Zone,'' which ran from 1959 through 1965 and invited its viewers to step into ``a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity.''

A writer and producer, Serling worked on other television series and several movies, including ``Requiem for a Heavyweight.'' But he has always been most famous for the ``The Twilight Zone.''

``I think `The Twilight Zone' was a labor of love for him,'' Carol Serling said.

Serling was born in Syracuse, grew up Binghamton, and had a summer home on nearby Cayuga Lake. He was a frequent guest lecturer at Ithaca College, delivered the 1972 commencement address and was a visiting professor there at the time of his death. Carol Serling is an Ithaca College trustee.

by CNB