Wife of Twilight Zone Legend Rod Serling Was 90 The Hollywood Reporter -

Carol Serling, the wife of Rod Serling who helped keep alive the legacy of the Twilight Zone creator, died Thursday at her home in Pacific Palisades, their daughter Anne told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 90.

She served as a consultant and appeared in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and was a supervising producer for 1994’s Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics. She also was an associate publisher and consulting editor from 1981-89 on a magazine dedicated to the 1959-64 anthology show and has an executive producer credit on the current CBS All Access revival hosted by Jordan Peele.

“It’s not that I’m a keeper of the flame. But it has kept me busy,” she said in a 1987 interview. “The Twilight Zone has turned into a business. I think Rod would be absolutely amazed that the interest is still there and that so many people remember his work.”

A member of Ithaca College’s Board of Trustees for nearly two decades, Carol helped establish the Rod Serling Archives at the school in upstate New York. The collection includes scripts and screenplays, her husband’s six Emmy Awards and photos, films and books from his personal collection. She also helped endow a Rod Serling Scholarship in Communications there.

Rod Serling, who hosted The Twilight Zone and wrote or co-wrote 92 of the 156 original episodes, taught for a spell at Ithaca and hosted students at the family home on New York’s Cayuga Lake — the town where he and his wife honeymooned. He died in June 1975 at age 50 following a series of heart attacks.

Raised in Columbus, Ohio, Carol met her future husband in 1946 when they were students at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and he had just returned from duty in World War II. They married two years later, and she received a degree in psychology and education in 1950.

Survivors include daughters Anne and Jodi, grandchildren Samuel, Ryan and Erica and great-grandchildren Alyssa and Aiden.

Jan. 17 A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Serling’s age. According to new information supplied by one of her daughters, she was 90 when she died.

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