His famous, fabulous face caught the eye of Hollywood casting directors and he earned his wings in a two-part 1981 TV-movie called The Star Maker. This project starred Rock Hudson and Suzanne Pleshette, along with Melanie Griffith, Teri Copley and Brenda Vaccaro, and Scalia played a cabbie who becomes the lover of Pleshette.

This first and single stint before the television camera led to his next project, a highly-publicized, yet ultimately failed, television series. It seems Scalia had also caught the eye of The Star Maker's leading man Hudson and thus Scalia was cast as his previously unknown son in a detective show called The Devlin Connection (1982.)

Photos of Hudson and Scalia were printed in every conceivable newspaper and magazine as the series was publicized mercilessly. Scalia was touted as Hudson's “find” and protegee and the show was highly anticipated as Hudson's return to series TV after not only the huge success of McMillan and Wife (1971-1977), but also a heart attack he'd suffered late in 1981.

Regardless of the blitz of promotion, the show failed to find its audience. This shot is from the 10th episode guest-starring Juliet Prowse, but the show only limped along for three more installments afterwards. Hudson would return once more to series TV in 1984 on Dynasty, but by then his illness was advanced to the point where he had to exit the show prematurely, dying in 1985.

Scalia was cast in a very short-lived show (at right, with Rick Edwards) called High Performance (1983) as a race car driver-turned-bodyguard, but it came and went within three weeks. Then in 1984 came the campfest TV-movie called Amazons, in which he played a police detective trying to thwart power-hungry females Tamara Dobson, Stella Stevens and others! More apt was his uncredited part as the Chicago Cubs pitcher in Robert Redford's The Natural (1984.)

His burgeoning career before the camera continued with 1984's Fear City, an exploitation-style movie concerning a psycho killer who is killing strippers. He and Berenger played co-strip club owners. It did, at least, costar known actors such as Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Melanie Griffith and Rossano Brazzi.

1985 had him performing in not one, but two more failed series. Berrenger's, a mid-season replacement prime-time soap, had him hobnobbing with Ben Murphy, Sam Wanamaker, Yvette Mimieux, Anita Morris and others in a high-priced department store. Debuting in January, it was gone before March. Then came Hollywood Beat, that fall, in which he costarred with Jay Acovone as policemen in Tinseltown.

The alternately gritty-glamorous show, modeled somewhat on Miami Vice, 1984-1990, (and which allegedly included burly, ex-football star John Matuszak as a gay sports bar owner!) only lasted for 14 episodes before having the rug pulled out from under it. He rounded out 1985 with the TV-movie The Other Lover, as the title character to Lindsay Wagner's married character.