The soap vet only spent a year on “Days” before being fired, but went on to 22 years on “The Young and the Restless” and 17 and counting on “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

Don Diamont recalls being fired from Days of Our Lives the same week he was voted Best Newcomer: ‘Trial by fire’

The soap vet only spent a year on “Days” before being fired, but went on to 22 years on “The Young and the Restless” and 17 and counting on “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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August 24, 2026 7:49 p.m. ET

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John de Lancie, Gloria Loring, and Don Diamont on ‘Days of Our Lives’. Credit:

Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

- Soap legend Don Diamont is looking back on his turbulent year on *Days of Our Lives*.

- The actor recalled several tense standoffs with executive producer Al Rabin, including one in which Rabin cut his scene and took him into a separate room to tell him, “Get a grip.”

- The current star of *The Bold and the Beautiful* also remembered being fired from *Days* the same week he was voted Best Newcomer.

Don Diamont might seem like one of the surest bets in Hollywood, given his 22-year tenure on *The Young and the Restless* and 17 years and counting on sister series *The Bold and the Beautiful*. But there was a time when Diamont seriously struggled on soap sets.

The veteran daytime star opened up about his turbulent year on *Days of Our Lives** *on a recent episode of the *Soapy *podcast.

“So, you do like a year on *Days of Our Lives*. How long was it?” *Soapy *cohost and current *DOOL* star Greg Rikaart asked Diamont.

Diamont nodded his head in assent about his 1984 stint on the soap, smirked, and said, “I was fired and voted Best Newcomer in the same week… An auspicious beginning.”

Don Diamont as Brad Carlton on ‘The Young and the Restless’.

He continued: “They’d gone through 200 people or 2,000, whatever it was, they couldn’t find the guy to play this part — Carlo Forenza. I end up getting it, screen test and the whole bit. So my first day, Al Rabin, the executive producer at the time, wanted to sit down and talk to me before I started shooting.”

Diamont described himself as “beyond green” at the time, having mostly worked as a model before landing the part. During the conversation, he asked Rabin, who worked on *Days* from 1975 to 1992, about the publicity dimension of soap starhood. “That didn’t really sit well with him,” Diamont remembered. “I probably should have talked to my agent before then about it, but I didn’t. So, he said, ‘How about we just learn what we’re doing here first and then you can worry about that.’”

The actor felt his question “kind of rubbed him the wrong way” — an impression that would quickly bear out.

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Diamont’s first scene involved Carlo being introduced at a party. “I walk in and I say whatever my lines are, and they stop tape and Al comes out of the booth onto the set, calls me off the set,” he recalled. “I will never forget it. He said, ‘I could take an actor who’s nervous. I can’t take an actor without energy. Get it together.’”

Rabin and Diamont’s relationship quickly soured. “I didn’t give a s‑‑‑ that he was the executive producer at that point. ‘You’re a bad coach,’” Diamont said he wanted to tell Rabin. Looking back, however, Diamont felt obliged to “give credit where credit is due.”

He described his *Days* experience, however tumultuous, as “really blessed… Al Rabin, that oil and water, that did not work well. But I also took my ownership of that, as well. I did need to learn what I was doing… That experience certainly made me take it more seriously.”

Diamont was fired before Carlo had even made it a year on *Days*. Carlo was ultimately dispatched from the show after Joseph Gallison’s Neil Curtis accidentally shot him. But Diamont’s work didn’t go unnoticed. He was cast as Brad Carlton the next year on *The Young and the Restless*, a character he played into the late 2000s. (Rabin died in 2012.)

Watch Diamont’s full appearance on the *Soapy *podcast above.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Soaps”