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He was born on December 28, 1860 in Buffalo, New York, United States, the oldest in a family of at least six children of Josiah Bailey and Elizabeth (Bach) Smith.
He was christened Henry, and his middle name was originally Bach; he added the final "e" to accord with the way the name was pronounced.
Late in the 1860's the family moved to Chicago, where Smith's father became active on the Board of Trade.
He received his schooling in Chicago, which ended in 1876 after one year of high school.
He had early become stage-struck, and after some delay and several jobs, he acted for two months with the Dickie Lingard Burlesque Company. He next turned to composition, writing for Fay Templeton an operetta, Rosita; or Cupid and Cupidity (music by George Schleiffurth), which was performed briefly in Chicago in March 1884. The Scarecrow, a comedy he wrote with Robert B. Peattie, ran for only three weeks.
Convinced of the need of more stage experience, Smith played small parts in the Chicago Dramatic Club and toured with the Chicago Church Choir Opera Company, singing - rather badly - Gilbert and Sullivan roles.
Turning to journalism, he became a reporter, and later the music critic, of the Chicago Daily News and at the same time edited a literary weekly, The Rambler, which ran for several years (1884 - 87). In 1888 he left the Daily News to become the business manager and drama critic of America, a new weekly founded by H. C. Chatfield-Taylor; his success in these positions resulted in his being named drama critic of the Chicago Tribune some two years later.
Meanwhile, at the age of twenty-six, Smith had written with Reginald de Koven, a young Chicago composer, the first of fifteen operettas that were to bring them fame and fortune. This was The Begum, performed at the Chestnut Street Opera House, Philadelphia, in November 1887 and then at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, that same month, with DeWolf Hopper and Jefferson De Angelis heading the cast.
While connected with America, Smith wrote four extravaganzas for the Chicago Opera House, one of them, The Crystal Slipper, having over 800 performances. In November 1889 the second of his operettas with De Koven, Don Quixote, was produced by the Bostonians, a group of professional singers led by Henry Clay Barnabee, at the Boston Theatre in Boston. Although it was a failure, it led to a contract with the Bostonians to write Robin Hood. First produced at the Chicago Opera House June 9, 1890, and afterwards at the Standard Theatre, New York, September 22, 1891, Robin Hood became the most popular American operetta ever composed.
He had other successful collaborations with De Koven, including The Fencing Master (November 1892), starring Marie Tempest; The Tzigane (May 1895), starring Lillian Russell; The Highwayman (December 1897); and Papa's Wife (November 1899), starring Anna Held.
Smith also supplied the librettos for fourteen operettas by Victor Herbert, among them the latter's first hit, The Wizard of the Nile (November 1895), starring Frank Daniels; The Serenade (March 1897) and The Fortune Teller (September 1898); and Babette (November 1903).
After the success of The Fencing Master in 1892, Smith gave up his newspaper connections in Chicago and settled in New York. He died of a heart attack at Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the age of seventy-five.
Harry Bache Smith is said to have written over 300 librettos and more than 6000 lyrics. Some of his best-known works were librettos for the composers Victor Herbert and Reginald De Koven. His production of Robin Hood became the most popular American operetta ever composed, running continuously for twenty years and earning for Smith and De Koven more than $250, 000 apiece. It was the first of a long series of successes that established Smith as America's leading librettist. By writing his librettos as short stories and adding the dialogue later, he introduced into operetta a tighter structure. He was probably the most prolific writer of song lyrics in history, although only a few of them are still sung: chiefly "Brown October Ale" from Robin Hood and "The Gypsy Love Song" from The Fortune Teller.
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( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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Shy and reserved by nature, he spent much of his time, when not writing for the stage, in reading, attending book auctions, and amassing a splendid library.
He was twice married: in October 1887 to Lena Reed and, after her death, in November 1906 to Irene Bentley of Baltimore, a singer who had starred in his The Strollers. He had one child by his first marriage, a son, Sydney R. Smith.
