When Behind the Screen premiered on CBS in October 1981, the network was taking a decidedly unconventional approach to late-night television. Rather than competing with the familiar talk-show format, CBS offered viewers a half-hour soap opera set behind the scenes of another soap opera.
The series aired at 11:30 p.m. ET and lasted just 13 episodes, ending in January 1982. Today, Behind the Screen is one of those television curiosities that seems almost impossible to find—despite having attracted millions of viewers during its brief run.
Among its stars was a young Michael Sabatino, for whom the series represented his first professional acting job. In an exclusive conversation with We Love Soaps, Sabatino looked back at the unusual CBS experiment, working with creator David Jacobs, his fellow cast members and the whirlwind production schedule that brought Behind the Screen to life.
“Who wants to watch Johnny Carson?”
Sabatino was understandably excited about landing his first television job, but even then he had questions about the premise.
“I was pretty naive,” Sabatino recalled. “So I would ask David Jacobs questions like, ‘Is this really seriously going to work up against Johnny Carson?’”
Jacobs apparently assured his young actor that CBS knew what it was doing. Eventually, however, Sabatino learned that the project was not necessarily expected to become a major hit.
At a party, Jacobs gave him a more candid explanation: the project was essentially an experiment and an opportunity for CBS to spend allotted money trying something different.
Still, Behind the Screen performed better than might be expected for such an unusual late-night offering. The first episode attracted 7.4 million viewers.
Sabatino was surprised when reminded of the number.
“Wow, that's surprising,” he said.
A soap opera about making a soap opera
The central gimmick of Behind the Screen was a soap-within-a-soap. The characters worked on a fictional daytime drama called Generations, and viewers were taken behind the scenes of that fictional program.
The concept allowed the writers to move freely between the soap opera being produced and the personal dramas unfolding among the people making it.
Sabatino's character, Brian, was particularly well suited to the backstage chaos. Brian was the privileged son of the show's producer and believed his father's position gave him considerable freedom.
“He was kind of privileged because his dad was the producer, so he thought he could get away with murder,” Sabatino said. “I just assumed that now he was a hothead.”
The production frequently blurred the line between the fictional soap and the backstage story. A scene from Generations might begin normally before the audience was suddenly taken behind the scenes. Sabatino remembered moments when his character would get into an argument backstage—sometimes even chasing down another character with a handheld camera.
His character's relationship with his fictional father, the producer of Generations, also became part of that backstage drama.
Six weekends to make 13 episodes
Making Behind the Screen was anything but leisurely.
The series consisted of only 13 episodes, a one-hour premiere plus 12 35-minute episodes, but the production schedule was remarkably compressed. The cast shot the entire run over six weekends at CBS.
The actors would gather for a table read on Friday, then tape two episodes on Saturday and Sunday.
The reason was simple: the studio wasn't normally available to them.
“They were shooting another show in that studio and we were kind of using their sets,” Sabatino explained.
For actors accustomed to the more relaxed pace of other productions, the schedule was intense.
The production also used what Sabatino referred to as “live tape.” It wasn't live television in the traditional sense. Instead, the videotape machines were ready to roll whenever the actors and crew were ready to go.
One wardrobe mishap illustrated just how frantic things could become.
“I think once I had the incorrect wardrobe. I was wearing the wrong shirt,” Sabatino recalled. “And they said, ‘We got live feed now, we gotta go.’”
The young actor couldn't quite understand the urgency.
“I said, well, what's the live part? We weren't live.”
The entire experience, he remembered, was “just kinda kooky.”
Working with Mel Ferrer and Mark Pinter
The cast included a number of experienced performers, including Mel Ferrer, who Sabatino remembered fondly.
“He was a very nice man,” he said. “He was very... erudite. He kind of held court.”
Sabatino also worked closely with Jeanine Turner and Josh Bryant, who played his father.
Another memorable cast member was Mark Pinter, who joined the show as a recast after the first weekend of production.
The change was immediate.
“They shot the first weekend, and they weren't happy with that actor, so they brought in Mark,” Sabatino recalled.
Pinter played a villain and brought a particularly commanding presence to the role.
“Mark is awesome,” Sabatino said. “He's just kind of got this steely presence.”
For Sabatino, watching Pinter step into the role was an education in itself.
“Wow,” he remembered thinking. “That's how you do it.”
Pinter would later be remembered by Sabatino as a “cool, cool guy.”
David Jacobs saw something in Sabatino
Although Behind the Screen disappeared after 13 episodes, the experience had a lasting impact on Sabatino's career.
He had been working in Los Angeles and had received a strong review for a play in the Drama-Log, along with an award. That led to an invitation to meet Lorimar casting director Dora Saba.
Sabatino auditioned for Behind the Screen.
“And just like that,” he recalled, “all of a sudden I was, you know, employed by them for six weeks and then it was over.”
But the story didn't end there.
Working with David Jacobs on Behind the Screen helped lead Sabatino to his next major television opportunity: Knots Landing.
Sabatino would go on to play Chip Roberts on the primetime soap, another David Jacobs production.
What if Behind the Screen had become a hit?
One of the fascinating aspects of a short-lived television series is imagining the alternate history it might have created had it succeeded.
Behind the Screen ended in January 1982. Around that same time, other actors who would become major figures in the soap world were embarking on very different journeys.
During our conversation, we couldn't resist considering the possibilities.
If Behind the Screen had taken off, Sabatino might have remained occupied with the series rather than moving on to Knots Landing. And that raises an intriguing soap-opera “what if”: would the careers and storylines of other performers have unfolded differently? For example, Behind the Screen actress Debbi Morgan began her iconic All My Children role in January 1982. And Janine Turner might've never starred on General Hospital.
Sabatino immediately recognized the irony.
“You're right,” he said.
The soap world is full of these unexpected crossroads—shows that disappear, actors who move from one series to another and projects that almost happened but ultimately changed television history in ways nobody could have predicted.
Where are the episodes?
Perhaps the biggest mystery surrounding Behind the Screen today is the simplest one: where is the show?
Unlike many better-known daytime and primetime soaps, Behind the Screen has become extraordinarily difficult to watch. Sabatino doesn't have copies of the episodes himself.
“I never taped anything,” he admitted. He wasn't even sure he had owned a Betamax at the time.
That makes surviving television archives particularly important.
Sabatino recalled a Hollywood videotaping service operated by a man named Jan Natarno, who recorded television programs and maintained an enormous collection. According to Sabatino, Natarno's home had been transformed into a recording center, with rooms filled with equipment, monitors and shelves of tapes.
“He had everything,” Sabatino said.
Sabatino believes the recordings may still exist somewhere, although finding them would be another matter entirely.
“I don't know how you find any,” he said.
And that is the frustrating reality facing anyone interested in television's forgotten history. A program could attract millions of viewers, employ talented actors and represent an important experiment for a major network—and yet decades later, almost nothing of it may be readily available to the public.
A show remembered more fondly by fans
When We Love Soaps published its feature on five forgotten 1980s soap operas, Behind the Screen stood out as one of the most intriguing examples.
Contemporary reviews were not especially kind to the series. But the memories of viewers tell another story.
Fans who contacted We Love Soaps remembered watching Behind the Screen and enjoying it considerably more than the reviews might suggest.
Sabatino wasn't surprised.
A soap opera about the people making a soap opera was already an unconventional proposition. The fact that it aired late at night—and deliberately played with the conventions of the genre—probably didn't help it with critics.
“A soap within a soap,” I noted during our conversation. “Really pissed them off.”
Sabatino agreed.
Perhaps that is part of what makes Behind the Screen so fascinating more than four decades later. It wasn't simply another failed television series. It was an unusual experiment that anticipated the industry's fascination with television production, celebrity culture and the drama behind the camera.
And while the show itself may have vanished, its performers carried pieces of the experience with them.
For Michael Sabatino, Behind the Screen was the beginning.
It gave a young actor his first television job, introduced him to David Jacobs and ultimately helped put him on the path to Knots Landing.
Not bad for a 13-episode experiment that once had to compete with Johnny Carson.
And somewhere, perhaps, those missing episodes are still sitting on a shelf.
This interview is part of We Love Soaps' continuing look at forgotten soap operas and the performers who brought them to life.
