Monday, December 13, 2010

ROBERT JEROME SERLING, THE MAN FROM THE SKY... ABOVE THE CLOUDS

ROBERT JEROME SERLING, THE MAN FROM THE SKY... ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Author photo. Robert J. Serling




by Dane Youssef

No. No, this man is not nearly as renown as his universally-celebrated brother who took us into "The Twilight Zone" and "The Night Gallery..." or a strange, mysterious planet ruled by apes.


But a great, established and respectable writer in his own right. Where Rod made his mark on the world with ground-breaking scripts for the medium of television, Robert seems to focus more on novels. Robert never got nearly the fame and his little brother did.


Whereas Rod wrote scripts for television--Emmy caliber scripts that were part of the Golden Age of Television and got to shape and define what it is today. And back when science-fiction and fantasy was the absolute genre for the youngest generation. And Rod himself spent almost as much time in front of the camera as he did in the writer's room, which only helped to give him the notoriety he always wanted.


Robert is still around today due to the fact that he didn't chain-smoke cigarettes by the truckload every waking hour. Roddy's major was drama involving fantasy and the supernatural, whereas brother Robby seemed to favor non-fiction. Such as docudramas and biographical literature.


Occasionally, he would actually mesh the two and write a gripping, taut and compelling fiction story based on a real-life event. Such as the famed luxury line "The ''Unsinkable Titanic" and the real-life private presidential plane "Air Force One." Long before the big Hollywood star vehicle summer blockbusters of these real-life phenomenons, Robert Serling himself was making the sinking ship and the president's private toy plane all his own. "Something's Alive On The Titanic" and "The President's Plane Is Missing."


Like his significantly more distinguished brother, he has a gift for the hybrid--meshing fantasy and fiction. But true aviation--planes, shuttles and piloting always seemed to be his first love. Many of his books might be found in "Non-Fiction." Like the immoral Howard Hughes whom Serling himself wrote a biography about--as well as his airlines, Rob considered himself an aviator first and foremost.


The man loved himself airplanes. He lived for them. He wrote for them. The man did more for airplanes than the Wright Brothers, Howard Hughes, TWA, Alaskan Airlines--and God help us all, even NASA. Although many books exist all around about the whole craft of planes, most are merely instruction manuals filled with endless boring data. Whereas Serling always tried to write his with the powerful passion and imagery of Hemmingway.


Though the machines that flew seemed to be his first love he often dabbled in the practice of good-old fashioned murder mystery. He penned the "whodunit" books, such as "The Probable Cause." He also wrote several fiction thriller novels with the backdrop aboard an airplane: "Wings," "The Left Seat," "Air Force One is Haunted."


There was a time when the very idea that there was a device that could give man the power of flight all seemed like a fairy tale. But when flight and space travel was first made an actual physical reality, this was the man making sure it got the back-story it deserved.


And when the practice was no longer radical and new... good old Robert was still giving it the limelight it deserved...


--With Respect For A True Aviator, one true-blue, red-blooded 48-karat writer for another, Dane Youssef




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