Keach's first-ever experience as a series regular on a television program was playing the lead role of Lieutenant Ben Logan in "Caribe" in 1975. He played Barabbas in 1977's "Jesus of Nazareth", and portrayed Jonas Steele, a psychic and Scout of the United States Army in the 1982 CBS miniseries, "The Blue and the Gray". He later portrayed and is best known as Mike Hammer in the CBS television series "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" and "The New Mike Hammer" from 1984 to 1987. He returned to the role of Hammer in "Mike Hammer, Private Eye", a new syndicated series that aired from 1997 to 1998. In 1988, he starred as Ernest Hemingway in the made-for-TV movie "Hemingway".