Tall, Dark, and Handsome

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Clark Gable himself. Accept no substitutes.

"You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood."

— Merian C. Cooper invoking Exact Words to Fay Wray, prior to working on King Kong (1933)

Tall, Dark, and Handsome Stranger was a pulp fiction trope, particularly in mystery novels. Romance novels still play it straight sometimes. This then led to a Tall, Dark, and Handsome casting trope for leading men: Clark Gable, etc. This is also one of the defining attributes of the Latin Lover stereotype. A tall and handsome black man can be described as such too, though anyone with the height and dark hair can pull it off.

Being one of the oldest tropes in the book, it's nowadays more often used in subversions and deconstructions. The actual invocation of the trope Tall, Dark, and Handsome Stranger is often parodied, or might be played straight but usually isn't highlighted if it is.

Examples when the trope is invoked, parodied and/or subverted:

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General

Best known example (and, maybe, the Ur-Example) would be a Roma fortune teller prophesizing that her female customer will meet a tall, dark and handsome stranger.

Anime and Manga

Gilbert Nightray from Pandora Hearts physically fits the description. Psychologically, though, he's a wubbly mess and often behaves very childishly. The other characters (and the mangaka) enjoy picking on him mercilessly.
Gilbert Durandal in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. However, he is a Well-Intentioned Extremist Magnificent Bastard.
Neil Dylandy, the first Lockon Stratos from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, might fit, however, he is a revenge-obsessed individual. His Backup Twin Lyle might fit more.
Inspector Shiratori, Makoto Kyougoku, and the local One-Scene Wonder Jinpei Matsuda, from Detective Conan.
Both Mori and Kyoya use this intentionally as part of their Mr.Fanservice on Ouran High School Host Club.
Reiji Marco of Eyeshield 21 fits the description, but underneath the expensive suits and suave demanour is a panicky geek, and a Manipulative Bastard, to boot.
Sebastian Michaelis aka the "Black Butler".
In Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic Sinbad is this trope in spades. He's got the Tall, Dark and Handsome points that bring all the scantily-clad ladies to the yard.
Bertolt Hoover from Attack on Titan. He physically meets the standards, towering over his classmates with tanned complexion and black hair, dark Green Eyes, and a classical Roman nose. His personality couldn't be further from it, being a self-described Extreme Doormat that constantly looks nervous. However, this has resulted in his status as a memetic Moe woobie in the fandom.
Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-'s Kurogane.
Magic Knight Rayearth has Zagato and Lantis who are both this trope personified.
Ranma ½ Tatewaki Kuno has dark hair(black in the manga and dark brown in the anime), is one of the tallest characters in the cast and is very Hunky in appearance. In the watermelon chapter and its anime adaptation, Kuno even introduces himself as "Strikingly handsome, dark and tall." Despite Kuno's own thoughts, he's actually the Lord Error-Prone rival to the led.
World Trigger's Reiji Kizaki and not to mention that he's also muscular and a great cook.
Koutarou Amon from Tokyo Ghoul is repeatedly noted for both his exceptional height and good looks, especially when dressed in uniform. Unfortunately, he's a workaholic with serious daddy issues and regularly ends up falling victim to his Troll of a partner. He deals with his attraction to her by doing pushups on her balcony all night while berating himself.

As noted above, the director of the original King Kong (1933) truthfully promised Fay Wray that she would be working with the "tallest, darkest" leading man in the world. Although a bit of a stretch: the actual Kong ligature used for most scenes was only about sixteen inches tall.
The Man with the Golden Gun: One of Fransisco Scaramanga's associates describes him in this way to Bond. Bond remarks that his aunt matches that description, too.
From Dusk Till Dawn : While at 5'11" George Clooney might not be quite as tall as others in the trope, Seth Gecko is handsome and mysterious, with a Dark and Troubled Past. Word of God on the DVD commentary points out that Robert Rodriguez, the film's director, deliberately shot Clooney from underneath, to make him look heroic. This is a subversion in that he's not a romantic lead. The head vampire wants to either eat or enslave him, and Kate makes an overture that is quickly shot down.
Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger parodies this trope in the title.
From The Hobbit, Thorin Oakenshield, played by 6'2" tall Richard Armitage, which explains why he's quite tall for a Dwarf. Kíli is almost as tall as his uncle, as Aidan Turner is 6'0".

Literature

Played with in Dragon Bones, Alizon, the king's half-brother is described as very handsome, tall and slender like a wolf, and, occasionally, dark-haired. (He dyes his hair, which is apparently already going grey, and seems fond of trying out new colours)
In Good Omens, Anathema Device hoped that the man she was prophesized to meet would be a Tall, Dark, and Handsome stranger. Turned out, the stranger in question was Newton Pulsifer, who's tall (in a thin, rolled-out sort of way) and dark-haired, but not particularly handsome. She decided that she could live with two out of three. Crowley is a straighter example, although he's also a bit Tall, Dark, and Snarky.
Anne of Green Gables:
- Our heroine, who has read too many nineteenth-century romance novels, expresses a desire for this kind of man. And for a year and a half, she has one (did we mention the guy's filthy rich as well?), until she realizes how empty a life with him would be, for he's also dull as powder (to borrow a term from Little Women).
- Hilariously, the man she had rejected once before but ultimately ended up marrying—Gilbert Blythe—was constantly described in the books as being tall, dark, and handsome.
Smasher, a puppy from the Dick King-Smith book of the same name, asks whether his father was like this. His mother says yes, and that Smasher is going to be just like him. However Smasher is actually really ugly and described as looking like the offspring of the Hound of Baskerville.
In Victoria Hanley's Light of the Oracle, the love interest of the main character Kiran fits the tall and dark like an animal until he gets a makeover, becoming so handsome that he goes from being snubbed by the Rich Bitch Clea to being pursued by him.
In the Aunt Dimity series, Bill Willis was introduced with a beard, a paunch and thick horn-rimmed glasses when Lori first met him. He later lost all three, and Lori subsequently describes him as being "quite literally, tall, dark and handsome."
In Alien in a Small Town, the phrase is lampshaded to describe Tendai Tamsanga. Notable that, even by African standards, his skin is very dark.
Harry Potter: Snape is an aversion; he's tall and dark, but the author never describes him as handsome, even emphasizing his greasy hair and other less-than-desirable features. After the casting of Alan Rickman as Snape in The Movie of the Book however, he got his share of rabid Fan Girls who do see him this way.

Live-Action TV

Phoebe from Charmed occasionally describes her love interest Cole this way.
Smallville: instead of using their names, Lois describes Clark (at least) once as "tall, dark, and bumbling" and on another occasion as "tall, dark, and single" and Davis/Doomsday as "tall, dark, and scary".
Clark: Davis must have done something to her. Chloe would never lie to me if she weren't trapped.
Oliver: Either that, or she just can't resist tall, dark and Doomsday.
- When Lois watches a video from her Missing Mom (played by a former Lois Lane), she is told that she will meet someone special, and her mother guesses he will be tall, dark, and handsome.
John Reese from Person of Interest, though given that he's inhabiting a World of Snark, he's just as likely to be described as "Tall, Dark and Deranged" by the likes of Detective Fusco. In later seasons he gets some grey in his hair, so the Silver Fox trope is used instead.
The Professional. Thus spoke Bodie: "I believe in me because I was born tall, dark and beautiful... and engagingly modest of course."

Music

Heart did a song called Tall Dark Handsome Stranger which is actually a deconstruction of this trope, taking a rather negative view, all about how much better a Nice Guy is. Disturbingly, a search of Youtube shows that this song is being used to celebrate the Tall Dark Handsome Stranger
19th century tunesmith Henry Clay Work's Buckskin Bag of Gold comes complete with a fortune teller and has great fun taking the wind out of the trope's sails.
When they first met, Dean Martin told Jerry Lewis that people would call him “the Boy with the Tall, Dark, and Handsome Voice.”

Newspaper Comics

Garfield: Jon Arbuckle once asked his cat if he was this. Garfield responded: "Maybe if you stand on a chair, turn off the lights, and squint." A variation was "stand on a chair, turn off the lights, and lie".

Professional Wrestling

Prince Devitt was one of the most popular foreign wrestlers in Japan but despite being the definition of tall, dark, and handsome he was put under a mask and the second Pegasus Kid. When he unmasked, it wasn't too long before he joined the evil Control Terrorism Unit in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. However, in some other promotions he was allowed to both use his real Irish identity and remain a beloved crowd favorite, but New Japan was the biggest promotion during his stay there he ended up founding so most people know evil Devitt. He ended up leaving the CTU stable and becoming part of a face tag team for a few years, so NJPW fans know the babyface also, but then he turned heel again and formed the Bullet Club at the end of his tenure. Then he went to WWE NXT and became the Good Is Not Nice / Dark Is Not Evil babyface demon king Finn Bálor.

Video Games

During the music video of Plants vs. Zombies:
"Sunflower" "I know your type: tall, dark and dead"
There's a trophy in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift that makes fun of this trope.
Super Robot Wars X: Celric Obsidian holds a classy and courtesy impression to X-Cross members when they met him for the first time. Of course, his original character should be like this, but once he's fallen into the paws of Ende, everything went downhill for him.

Web Comics

Invoked in Arthur, King of Time and Space
Jyu Viole Grace from Tower of God.

Western Animation

Parodied in SpongeBob SquarePants, where Pearl, in "The Chaperone", refers to her ex-boyfriend as "long, tan and handsome". Yes, he does turn out to be a complete dork.
In Disney's Aladdin, when Jasmine distracts Jafar by pretending to be mind-controlled into loving him, she describes Jafar as "tall, dark...well dressed..." Apparently, calling Jafar handsome would just be too suspicious.

Examples when the trope is played straight: (WARNING: Highly subjective!)

Anime and Manga

All of the darker-haired males in the Sohma family of Fruits Basket. Except most of them are pale in skin color.
Ren Tsuruga from Skip Beat!. He has rather long legs, is very handsome, and has dark hair. Even though he used to be a blond.
Kuroudo Akabane from Get Backers — when he's not killing people.
Sebastian from Black Butler.
- Earl Vincent Phantomhive, Ciel's deceased father.
- And Claude from the second season.
- And how could we forget William?
Susumu, Hijikata, and Yoshida from Peacemaker Kurogane.
Code Geass loves this trope. Lelouch in particular stands out.
- No mention of Li Xingke?◊
- Suzaku kinda fits, since he's a bit short compared to other males but is still quite tall for a Japanese male.
Allelujah Haptism, Johann Trinity, and Hong Long from Mobile Suit Gundam 00. Setsuna F. Seiei catches up in the second season.
A good amount of the male cast in Katekyō Hitman Reborn! fit under this trope, all being either Italian or Japanese.
Naruto has Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha, Neji Hyuga, and Kankuro without his make-up.
YuYu Hakusho:
- Kurama, Yusuke, and Karasu.
- Kuronue was also in the possession of a very Nice Hat, which really just cemented the deal.
Guts and Roderick from Berserk.
In Sailor Moon:
- Usagi's father Kenji, although much more subdued. Her mother does use these exact words to describe him when he was younger, though.
- Mamoru and Saphir both. They resemble each other. A lot. And resemble Lantis from Magic Knight Rayearth. Actually, the resemblances between Mamoru and Lantis are a bit too much (and not only in appearance - armor too).
Tyki Mikk and Yu Kanda from D.Gray-Man.
Tamahome from Fushigi Yuugi. Sue me.
Byakuya Kuchiki from Bleach along with Shuhei Hisagi and Shunsui Kyouraku
- Tensa Zangetsu◊.
Glen Baskerville from Pandora Hearts fits better than the aforementioned Gilbert. As Oswald, to be precise.
Don't forget Age from Heroic Age!
Ichise of Texhnolyze.
Hei of Darker Than Black.
Alucard of Hellsing.
Shoei Jinnai of Desire Climax.
Inugami of Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest.
Both Sen and Swordfish of Under Grand Hotel.
Sinbad from Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, and how. Not only does he exhibit all of the aesthetic features of this trope, his presence itself constantly attracts beautiful girls to the point where just sitting still for a second will get him a harem. This does not go unnoticed by the other, less tall, dark, and handsome characters.
Izaya of Durarara!!.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Colonel Roy Mustang: while "tall" may be slightly questionable (not short, but both Havoc and Falman are about a head taller), he certainly is dark, and as for handsome, well, he's the series' major Mr. Fanservice.
Luka of Betrayal Knows My Name.
Jonathan of Legend of the Blue Wolves.
Yamato of Karakuridouji Ultimo.
Lantis from Magic Knight Rayearth seems to define this trope. Black haired, handsome, and a height of 1.98m/6'6" (neck breaker much?).
- This is CLAMP...tall, dark, and handsome is their specialty.
Hagi from Blood+ is the epitome of this as well. In the novels, Kai muses to himself that even guys like him wouldn't be able to deny how attractive Hagi is.
Roger Smith from The Big O has got the look, the personality and the charm that constitutes this character type down pat.
Shinya Kōgami from Psycho-Pass.
Hijikata◊ Toshizo◊ in various incarnations such as Hakuouki or Peacemaker Kurogane, as in real life, he was known to be quite a handsome man.
Saitama in One-Punch Man used to look every bit the part until he went bald.

Comic Books

Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl has the tall, dark, handsome Ragamuffin, in his human form.
Corto Maltese.
Bruce Wayne, Batman. Money is not the only reason Bats is surrounded by women.
Blacksad: John Blacksad is tall, a black cat, and constantly being eyed by most females. Add to that his mysterious nature and you have an archetypal tall, dark, and handsome character.
Superman: despite all that Clark Kenting he does to make himself look geeky and awkward, the true Superman is quite a hunk.
Lobo, as of the New 52, much to the chagrin of his fans.

Fan Works

Often Sherlock Holmes in romantic fics, on both sides of the coin.
- Holmes is explicitly described as boyish several times in Mortality, sometimes from Mrs. Hudson's Point of View (who sees him as a surrogate son).
- Played very straight by the same author in the collab series Children of Time with Beth Lestrade, in a case of Love Before First Sight and Love at First Sight (not to mention Eating the Eye Candy). If Beth is to be believed, Sherlock Holmes is a very beautiful man.
In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, as a result of being aged up to 15 years old, Ash is now at least as tall Brock was in the original timeline (not to mention taller than Delia) and implied to have a more muscular build. This combined with his black hair and swarthy skin makes him pretty good-looking in the eyes of several female characters.
Kedar from the Frozen fic The Alphabet Story is described as "tall, with his father's dark hair but his mother's strong chin". Elsa, however, isn't interested in him. She's interested in his twin sister.

Films

Charles Boyer in Algiers with Hedy Lamarr.
"Come with me to the Casbah. We'll make beautiful music together."
Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind is the Trope Codifier.
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
The More the Merrier has Joel McCrea. 'Nuff said.
Omar Sharif is the epitome of this trope in Doctor Zhivago (where his multiple love interests are the center of attention, so female fans can spend the entire movie shipping) and Lawrence of Arabia (where he was a literal Ensemble Dark Horse because of this trope), both David Lean films. It helps that he's Egyptian.
Sir Michael Redgrave exemplified this trope (frequently coupling it with a refined charm) for much of his film career: see, for example, The Lady Vanishes, Thunder Rock, "the Ventriloquist's Sequence" in Dead of Night and Secret Beyond the Door.
Ladies man Murdoch Glourie as played by the sexy Robert Donat in The Ghost Goes West.
Philip Boynton on Our Miss Brooks.
Melvyn Douglas played this sort of character in Theodora Goes Wild. And probably every other film ever.
Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye in Last of the Mohicans. Eric Schweig as Uncas too for that matter.
Colin Farrell in The New World and Miami Vice epitomizes the "Black Irish" sort.
The Chronicles of Narnia:
- Prince Caspian. Susan even develops a crush on him.
- Adult/teenager Edmund Pevensie fits the description quite well. He's also a veritable Deadpan Snarker, starting from Prince Caspian.
Pretty much all the James Bonds, except for Daniel Craig. The Internet Backdraft that ensued after he was cast in Casino Royale (2006) is a good indicator on how pervasive this trope was and still is.
Letter from an Unknown Woman Stefan, played by Louis Jourdan, is beautifully dark, tall, and handsome. That's why he's The Casanova.
The Phantom in the Joel Schumacher version of The Phantom of the Opera (2004) as long as he keeps his mask on. Handsomeness goes out of the window at that point—and, for some reason, he also becomes fair.
- Because he was wearing a dark wig over his wispy, light brown hair. You see him putting on the wig right while he sings "Seal my fate tonight" before Don Juan Triumphant opens, and we see it fall off as Christine unmasks him.
The date doctor, Alex Hitchens, is referred to as this.
Notorious ladies' man Catcher Block in Down with Love.
Denzel Washington, especially in The '90s when he was considered to be a sex symbol, and even won Sexiest Man of the Year at one time. Films like Mo Better Blues, Ricochet, and The Pelican Brief helped this image.
Nod from Epic.
X-Men Film Series
- Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine certainly qualifies, although the comic books did not depict him this way. In the film series, he's dark, broody, dangerous, and mysterious.
- Colossus is the tallest X-Man, and he also happens to be a brunette and good-looking.
- Magneto as a younger man when played by Michael Fassbender in the First Class trilogy.
Thor: Ragnarok: Although Loki is normally a tall, raven-haired Pretty Boy, his all-black Midgardian suit gives him a more masculine appearance, and it makes him look handsome rather than pretty.
DC Extended Universe:
- Superman and Bruce Wayne certainly qualify courtesy of Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck. Affleck, at 6'4", is in fact the tallest actor to play Bruce Wayne to date.