Long interested in an acting career, Eddie Steeples studied theater at the St. Louis Repertory and moved to New York in the mid-1990s. There he joined an experimental film group, Mo-Freek, and a hip hop group, No Surrender. Steeples became nationally known when he was cast as the "Rubberband Man" in a series of award-winning commercials for OfficeMax, and his performance in those commercials led him to be named one of the "World's Sexiest Men" of 2004 by People magazine. He has also appeared in the feature movie Torque, starring Ice Cube, Faison Love, and Jaime Pressly. Steeples appears as Darnell Turner (also known as "Crab Man") in the sitcom My Name Is Earl.
Darnell "Crab Man" Turner is Joy's new husband and father of Earl Jr. Despite this, he and Earl are good friends. He works as a cook at the local Crab Shack (hence his nickname). It was revealed that his real name is "Harry Monroe," but he was forced to change it through the Witness Protection Program. Although generally calm and soft-spoken, Darnell is implied to be quite intelligent and occasionally makes highly intellectual statements, which the others usually ignore or brush off.