Underhill was born in Brooklyn in 1876, the son of Francis French Underhill and Mrs. Frances Bergen Underhill. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in 1894, received an A.M. at Columbia University two years later and a Ph.D. there in 1899. For the next two years he served at Columbia University as an assistant in comparative literature. In 1901 he went to the stage, gaining first-hand experience of drama by appearing in several plays. In 1911 Underhill became general representative for the United States and Canada of the Society of Spanish Authors. He began the work of translating Benavente's plays in 1917, completing four series of translations by 1924. In 1923 he translated the works of Gregorio Martínez Sierra. Underhill translated the plays in Volume I. The second volume of the plays was translated by Helen and Harley Granville-Barker. When a fire occurred at the Twilight Inn in Haines Falls, New York, resulting in death of at least 19 people, Underhill was on hand and served in the inquest that followed. Four plays by Lope de Vega were translated by Underhill in 1936. A member of The Players, he was author of the book "Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors, published in 1899. Around 1937, Underhill was living at in Brooklyn. Between 1940 and 1946, Dr. John Garrett Underhill, Sr., served as 6th President of the Underhill Society of America. Years later his son John Garrett Underhill Jr. would take on the same role.
Production history
Mr. Underhill started his career as a producer of Benavente in 1919 with Bonds of Interest for the Theatre Guild. The next year La Malquerida was produced at the Greenwich Village Theatre starring Nance O'Neil, under the title of Passion Flower. The production was well reviewed and critic Alexander Wollcott of The New York Times was favorably impressed by Mr. Underhill's part in the work. The Field of Ermine, belonging to the latest period of Benavente's works was produced with Miss O'Neil in 1922. Eva Le Gallienne starred in Saturday Night in 1926 which the translator described as "the first of Benavente's cerebral dramas." Mr. Underhill again produced Bonds of Interest, with Walter Hampden, in 1929. In 1926, he had produced The Cradle Song in London, bringing it to New York the next year. He received the Spanish Order of Isabel the Catholic for his work. Fuente Ovejuna or The Sheep Well by Lope de Vega had its first performance in the Experimental Theatre at Vassar College, May 1, 1936. Underhill was responsible for the translation.
