Lee Horsley, standing at an imposing 6ft 3 (190.5 cm), leveraged his commanding height to embody rugged leading men in television and film. His tall stature perfectly suited the charismatic detective in Matt Houston (1982–85), the frontier marshal in Paradise (1988–91), and authoritative figures like Sheriff Gus in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012) and the stagecoach driver in The Hateful Eight (2015). Earlier roles in Nero Wolfe (1981) and Sword and the Sorcerer highlighted his physical presence, making him a natural for action-packed Westerns and thrillers.