Arrested as a teen in his native Canada, playwright John Herbert's reformatory experience would later become the basis for the play that would bring him fame nearly 20 years after his youthful indiscretions, providing the framework that would serve as the basis to his most popular work, Fortune and Men's Eyes.
Following a reading of Herbert's play at the Canadian Shakespeare Festival, a Toronto Star drama critic sent the work to David Rothenberg, a New York publicist who soon served as producer to the play. Opening in February of 1967, Fortune in Men's Eyes ran for a year in the Big Apple before finding success in Herbert's hometown of Toronto. Produced in over 60 countries, Fortune would later become the basis for the Fortune Society, an ex-offender program that prompted wider social consciousness and change within the prison system. Serving on the Advisory Council to the organization, as well as an artistic director to the Maverick Theater, a Toronto-based outfit which he also founded, Herbert also served as a lifetime member of New York's Actor's Studio.
John Herbert died in his sleep on June 22, 2001. He was 75.
