Griffin Leggett Conway Funeral Home
April 2, 2017
Bobby Rhea Harwell of Conway, Arkansas passed away peacefully Saturday morning, April 1, 2017, at Conway Regional Hospital. He was born in Nashville, AR on August 22, 1931, to Morris & Leila Maude Harwell. He is survived by his daughters Karen Harwell of Sherman Oaks, CA and Nancy Harwell of Stillwater, Oklahoma, two grandchildren, four great grandchildren, one great, great grandchild, and his sister Myra Young and Anne Parker, both of Nashville, AR. His special friend, Gail Purtle, was at this side when he passed.
Before serving four years in the Air Force, which included a year in a combat hospital group in Korea, Harwell served in the merchant marines. His service there included an adventurous trip to India on a Swedish freighter that caught fire. After his military service, he attended and graduated from the University of AR.
Harwell spend the next twenty years in an eclectic potpourri of employment that included commercial fishing, drapery hanging, driving cabs, working in a skid row blood bank, and teaching school in a Miami ghetto. In the early 1980s, he began print modeling, which led to TV commercials. He also landed three small roles on Miami Vice. From there he moved to Hollywood where he continued to model while acting in many more TV commercials and doing small parts on TV and in films.
He produced one low budget movie and published on novel, Flawed, which is based partly on his experience in Hollywood.
HARWELL, Bobby (Bobby Rhea Harwell)
Born: 8/22/1931, Nashville, Arkansas, U.S.A
Died: 4/1/2017, Conway, Arkansas, U.S.A.
Bobby Harwell’s western’s actor:
East Meets West – 1995 (Preacher)