[1] Steele's career began to take off in 1927, when he was hired by production company Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) to star in a series of Westerns.

Steele appeared as "Kirby" with Agnes Moorehead and Madlyn Rhue in the 1959 episode "In Memoriam" of another ABC Western series, The Rebel, starring Nick Adams.

In 1959, he appeared with Mason Alan Dinehart, another Wyatt Earp alumnus, in the episode "Half a Loaf" of the syndicated series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews.

On January 25, 1960, Steele was cast as the frontier gunfighter Luke Short in an episode of the CBS Western series, The Texan, starring Rory Calhoun.

In real life, forty years before F Troop, Steele played a supporting role in his father's 1926 film Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo.