Brown later played Tom Harvey (son of Chicken George, great-grandson of Kunta Kinte, and great-grandfather of Alex Haley) in the 1977 television miniseries Roots, and 1979’s Roots: The Next Generations.

In 1980, he starred in the TV movie The Night the City Screamed, and in Stir Crazy opposite Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. Later in 1984 he starred in the TV movie The Jesse Owens Story in the role of Lew Gilbert. He then went on to a supporting role in yet another miniseries North & South in 1985 as the character Garrison Grady.

In 1986, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for directing the final episode (“Parting Shots”) in season 5 of Cagney & Lacey. His directing career continued with the television film Alone in the Neon Jungle (also known by its earlier name Command in Hell), which was network premiered by CBS on Sunday January 17, 1988. It was characterised in The Washington Post by Tom Shales as ‘a stupefyingly preposterous bungle, but only in its better moments’, while a marginally more favourable assessment praised ‘cop characters that are humanized with humor and the realistically gritty feel that comes with filming on location in Pittsburgh instead of Hollywood’.

Brown co-starred in the comedy sequel House Party 2 in 1991, and the Showtime television show Linc’s from 1998 thru 2000. Brown also directed several second-season episodes of the television series Hill Street Blues. More recently, Brown had a recurring role on the FX drama series Nip/Tuck.