Mike Hammer
The TV movie is significant because it marks the first appearance of Stacy Keach in the role of Hammer. After the second pilot movie, which served as the initial episode of the first CBS series, Keach would go on to star in a third made-for-TV movie ("The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer"), which was followed by the return of the series to CBS, now titled "The New Mike Hammer". He went on to star in a syndicated series, "Mike Hammer, Private Eye", in 1997. In 1996 his voice was featured reading the audiobook version of Spillane's penultimate Mike Hammer novel "Black Alley", and Keach continues to portray Mike Hammer in a series of radio novels entitled collectively "The New Adventures of Mike Hammer".