Barnabee, Henry Clay

Barnabee, Henry Clay (1833–1917), comic actor and singer. Born in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts, he quit school to work as a dry‐goods clerk, but performing in amateur theatricals convinced him his future lay in performing. Barnaby made his professional debut in recital at the Music Hall in Boston in 1865, but his fame as a soloist and as a performer in musical theatre remained largely local until 1879 when he became one of the original members of the Boston Ideal Opera Company. He stayed with the “Bostonians” for their quarter‐century history, serving as their principal comedian. While he was hailed for such interpretations as Sir Joseph Porter in H. M. S. Pinafore, Bunthorne in Patience, Izzet Pasha in Fatinitza, Dulcamara in The Elixir of Love, and Lord Allcash in Fra Diavolo, his greatest role was the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood (1891), which he created and played for some two thousand times. The horse‐faced performer was appreciated for his rare combination of fine bass‐baritone singing and humor, one Kansas City critic noting, “At all times he is a gentleman, and nothing in his quiet and Jeffersonian wit is ever vulgar or out of place.” Autobiography: My Wanderings, 1913.