Janssen played an alcoholic in the 1977 TV movie "A Sensitive, Passionate Man", which co-starred Angie Dickinson, and an engineer who devises an unbeatable system for blackjack in the 1978 made-for-TV movie "Nowhere to Run", co-starring Stefanie Powers and Linda Evans. Janssen's impressively husky voice was used to good effect as the narrator for the TV mini-series "Centennial" (1978–79); he also appeared in the final episode. He starred in the made-for-TV mini series "S.O.S. Titanic" as John Jacob Astor, playing opposite Beverly Ross as his wife, Madeleine, in 1979.