TLDR: Archie Campbell played the cigar-chomping barber and the quack country doctor on Hee Haw, but behind the sketches he was one of the show’s two original writers from the day it premiered in 1969. He was also a working recording artist, a Grand Ole Opry regular, a painter, and a Knoxville school board member, and he died in 1987 at age 72.
Most people who remember Archie Campbell remember him in the barber chair, cigar clenched in his teeth, mangling a fairy tale into something filthier sounding than it actually was.
That was the character. It was not the whole man.
By the time Hee Haw hired him in 1969, Campbell had already spent 35 years building a career in Tennessee entertainment, and the show made him one of its two original writers, not just a cast member reciting somebody else’s jokes.
A Radio Man Long Before Kornfield Kounty
Archie Campbell was born November 7, 1914, in Bulls Gap, Tennessee, a small town in Hawkins County.
He studied art at Mars Hill College in North Carolina before pivoting into radio, launching his broadcasting career at WNOX in Knoxville.
After a stint at WDOD in Chattanooga and a tour of duty in the Navy during World War II, Campbell returned to Knoxville and helped launch the city’s first country music television program, Country Playhouse, which ran from 1952 to 1958.
That show’s success moved him to Nashville, where he replaced Rod Brasfield on the Grand Ole Opry’s Prince Albert segment and became a regular Opry performer in his own right.
The Barbershop, Doc Campbell, and Rindercella
When Hee Haw premiered in 1969, Campbell was hired as an on-air comedian and, alongside Gordie Tapp, as one of the show’s two original writers.
His barbershop sketch became one of the show’s signature bits, usually with Roy Clark playing his captive customer while Campbell delivered his trademark “that’s good, that’s bad” routine.
His most famous individual routine was “Rindercella,” a spoonerism retelling of Cinderella where the first letters of key words swapped places for comic effect.
He also played “Doc Campbell,” a running gag about a quack country doctor who dressed in a white coat and stethoscope while a veterinary certification hung, unnoticed by most viewers, on the office wall behind him.
Campbell was named Comedian of the Year by the Country Music Association in 1969, the same year Hee Haw premiered.
The Recording Artist Nobody Remembers
Before he was a television fixture, Campbell was a working RCA Victor recording artist.
His single “Trouble in the Amen Corner” reached the country music Top 25 in 1960, and he continued releasing comedy and music albums well into his Hee Haw years, including a collaboration with fellow cast member Junior Samples.
The Painter, the Politician, the Golf Course Builder
Campbell’s art training at Mars Hill never left him. He owned his own art gallery and continued painting seriously throughout his television career.
In his later years he developed Hee-Haw Village, an amusement complex in Pigeon Forge built in partnership with Midge Hicks and Tim Reagan, and relocated his gallery there from Gatlinburg.
He also served on the Knoxville school board and built one of the first lighted golf courses in America, a detail that surprises most people who only know him from the barber chair.
How Archie Campbell Died
Campbell suffered a heart attack in June 1987 and continued performing in the months that followed.
He died on August 29, 1987, at the University of Tennessee Hospital in Knoxville, at age 72, from kidney problems and complications related to the earlier heart attack, as reported in his Los Angeles Times obituary.
He is buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Powell, a Knoxville suburb in Knox County, Tennessee.
The Archie Campbell Museum in his hometown of Bulls Gap now preserves his life and career, and the Tennessee Encyclopedia maintains a detailed record of his decades in Tennessee broadcasting.
He shared the Hee Haw stage for years with co-hosts Buck Owens and Roy Clark, both of whom outlasted him on the show but never matched his role behind the scenes as a writer.
For the rest of the cast and where they ended up, see our full Hee Haw cast guide.
What happened to Archie Campbell?
Archie Campbell died on August 29, 1987, at age 72, at the University of Tennessee Hospital in Knoxville. He had suffered a heart attack that June and continued performing until kidney problems and related complications led to his death.
Was Archie Campbell a real doctor?
No. On Hee Haw he played a comedic character called Doc Campbell, a quack country doctor who wore a white coat and stethoscope. The running joke was that a veterinary certification, not a medical degree, hung on his office wall.
Where is Archie Campbell buried?
Archie Campbell is buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Powell, a suburb of Knoxville in Knox County, Tennessee.
Was Archie Campbell a member of the Grand Ole Opry?
Yes. Campbell joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1958 as a comedian on the Prince Albert segment, replacing Rod Brasfield, and remained a beloved member of the Opry alongside his work on Hee Haw.
