Twilight Zone Writer Wanted Rod Serling to Star in This Classic Episode

Was there a frustrated actor lurking somewhere inside Twilight Zone creator and host Rod Serling?

"Probably," his widow, Carol Serling, postulated in Stewart T. Stanyard's Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television's Groundbreaking Series. "He was very nervous when he started doing narrations for The Twilight Zone, and I think that's what caused that tight-lipped sort of grim delivery that he had."

As time went on, however, he became more comfortable "in front of the camera and he did some game shows and things like that," added Carol. "He did a little piece on Jack Benny and a piece on Danny Kaye and Icabod and Me—those were fun for him."

While he never went full thespian, there is a parallel world in the multiverse where Rod could have played a non-host character on the first season of his famed anthology series.

Charles Beaumont, writer of season one installment "A Nice Place to Visit," wanted Serling to play the episode's main character, Rocky Valentine, a small-time crook who believes he's been sent to Heaven after being mortally wounded by police mid-theft. He ultimately grows bored of having his every whim catered to and begs his afterlife guide, Pip (Sebastian Cabot), to send him to "the other place," only for Pip to inform him that he's already there.

Rod Serling Could Have Starred in Twilight Zone Episode "A Nice Place to Visit"

"I've had an absolutely screwball idea," Beaumont wrote in a January 1960 letter to his boss, according to Martin Grams Jr.'s The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. "Your first reaction will be one of humble astonishment, followed by rapid blinking and fantods. If, for any reason, we can't get Mickey Rooney for 'The Other Place' [the episode's original title], why don't you essay the role of Rocky yourself?"

"If I know writers," he continued, "it's a good bet old Rod has the same secret ambition I do...to wit, to act. We're all hams in our own ways, each of us planning to write himself into a part someday; is it not so? My opinion is that it would be a lot of fun all around, that if you can indeed act, you'd be keen in the role, and that the concomitant publicity would be not bad."

Rooney didn't end up playing the part, but this turn of events was not enough to goad Serling into the acting spotlight. Instead, Larry Blyden assumed Valentine's eternal damnation, while Rooney turned up four seasons later in "The Last Night of a Jockey."

Rod, of course, made his official appearance as host in the season one finale, "A World of His Own." It also marked the first and only time he ever interacted with characters from the show.

Classic episodes of The Twilight Zone air regularly on SYFY. Click here for complete scheduling info!