In

the film The Other Side of Midnight in 1977, Beck played the male lead. A year later, Beck starred in an adaptation of H.G. Wells‘s The Time Machine (with future Three’s Companyactress Priscilla Barnes), and appeared in the TV miniseries Wheels. He appeared as Dorian Blake in 1985’s Peyton Place: The Next Generation, a proposed revival of 1960s’ Peyton Place.

After 15 years of being cast in supporting roles and bit-parts in various American drama and comedy series and low-budget films, he landed his first major starring role playing Sam Curtis in the early 1980s television series Flamingo Road, followed by the role of Mark Graison on Dallas from 1983 to 1986. Although his character was killed off in 1984, he later returned after having faked his death to seek an alternative cure for a disease from which he was suffering. However, in 1986, former star Patrick Duffy was asked to return to Dallas. To accommodate this, the producers made the entire 1985–1986 season a dream of character Pamela Ewing. As a result, Beck’s character was written out of the show as if he had never returned from the dead.

Over 1991 and 1992, Beck had a leading role on Santa Barbara, playing David Raymond in over 100 episodes. He returned to this genre in 2001, with a recurring role in Passions.

Beck took a brief turn at voice acting, providing the voice of the Punisher in three episodes of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Beck also guest-starred as the character Raymond Boone in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine extended episode “Tribunal” in 1994. A year later, he appeared in the film Black Day Blue Night.

After his third appearance on the Walker: Texas Ranger series in 1997, Beck began to wind down his acting schedule due to “exhaustion”. In 2009, he retired from acting