John Herbert (born John Herbert Brundage) has achieved a degree of international fame unmatched by any other Canadian playwright, with the possible exception of Bernard Slade. Herbert owes his reputation to the success of Fortune and Men's Eyes. After the play was workshopped at the Stratford Festival in 1965 and had its first full production at the Actors Playhouse in New York in 1967, it was given over a hundred professional productions in forty countries and was produced as a film (which Herbert disowned) in 1971. While none of his other plays has achieved the acclaim accorded Fortune and Men's Eyes, Herbert has been a prolific writer, a director, actor, and activist for the arts.

He was born 13 October 1926 to Gladys Rebecca Brundage (née Kirk), a high school science teacher, and Claude Herbert Brundage, a semi-professional hockey, lacrosse, and baseball player, later a sports coach. Herbert has often spoken...