I watched Fred Astaire's 1935 screwball comedy Top Hat the other night. He is of course a phenomenal dancer, but he's also a very good actor. He has an intelligence about him, which would come out even if he were give a dumb role.
And Gregory Peck was in the 1958 western The Big Country. There were scenes when he would silently watch something unravel, or someone make some statement, or the woman he plans to propose to, and what we see is keen intelligence in the dark, pensive gaze. He takes courting the women, Julie Maragon, as seriously as he a does taming a wild horse, and approaches her with as much energy (although it is camouflaged with good manners and affection) to tame her as he does the horse.
Columbo, Peter Falk's character, has a penetrating intelligence which is fun to watch, especially as I try to decipher what it is that he saw that would help him solve the case. But, in true post-60s fashion (the series was filmed in the 1970s), his signature look is not a top hat, or rancher's boots, but a crumpled, worn out top coat. His hair is as disheveled as his clothing. But he somehow manages to retain his intelligent look.
Everybody takes these men seriously, even Peter Falk, after his first penetratingly simple question. And the women respond to this intelligence by letting the men lead them. Ginger Rogers lets Astaire pirouette her around the dance floor. And the woman Peck woos is tamed from her rancher's life to the life of a rancher's wife. Falk's wife is never shown on screen, although she nags him via telephone calls at his work (often the house of a murder scene) to get bread or milk on his way home, which Falk deflates from escalating by talking to her kindly and patiently. But he goes about his professional duties without his wife's meddling, and I doubt he would have any patience with her if she were to meddle.
In a few more years we would be in the territory of the Brad Pitts and the George Clooneys. Pitt would get his snake woman Jolie to call all the shots, and Clooney would bubble along in a jovial manner, thinking he's in charge. And they both look like idiots on the screen.