Harry B. Smith

Harry Bache Smith was born in Buffalo, NY, on December 28, 1860, to Elizabeth Bach and Josiah Bailey Smith. The Smith family moved to Chicago in the 1860s where Harry began writing and collecting rare books, manuscripts, and autographs. After starting as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, Smith later became a music critic for that paper. He also worked for the Chicago Tribune as a drama critic. By 1874, Smith had begun writing musical plays and operettas. His first operetta, Rosita, or Cupid and Cupidity, was produced by the Fay Templeton Opera Company. Amaryllis, his second production, was a musical comedy and became popular with amateur dramatic clubs. As a result of this exposure, Smith was engaged to write a series of burlesques for the Chicago Opera House.

In 1887, Smith and Reginald DeKoven collaborated on The Begum, a comic operetta that received enough support for the collaboration to continue and to produce one of the most popular American operas, Robin Hood, which played almost continuously for twenty years. with Victor Herbert writing the score. Besides Herbert and DeKoven, Smith collaborated with Irving Berlin, Ivan Caryl, Leo Fall, Gustave Kerker, Jerome Kern, Franz Lehar, Sigmund Romberg, John Philip Sousa, and Oscar Strauss. The author of some 300 librettos and over 6000 lyrics, Smith was respected in the theater world for his creative and humorous style of writing. Broadway saw 123 of his shows, which also played in other cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia. Smith was the earliest American lyricist to be honored with a published collection of his lyrics. Some of his most popular shows include Sweethearts (1913) and The Spring Maid (1910) both with lyrics by his brother Robert B. Smith.

Smith married Lena Reed in October 1887, and had one son, Sydney R. Smith. In November 1906, Harry Smith married actress Irene Bentley. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Smith summarized, critiqued, and evaluated plays and stories that Warner Brothers was considering for theatrical productions or motion pictures. Harry Bache Smith died on January 1, 1936.