2001-06-23

JOHN HERBERT, (ne John Herbert Brundage) was a drag queen, a pioneering gay playwright and “mordant gadfly” of the Canadian theatre scene in the 1960s and 70s. He died at his Toronto home on this date. He was 74 and had been ill after undergoing a biopsy for prostate cancer. Herbert was best known as the author of Fortune and Men’s Eyes, his 1964 play that mercilessly exposed the homosexual reality of prison culture.

John Herbert Brundage was raised in Toronto. He was writing fiction from the age of 14. By 18 he was a accomplished drag queen. He was able to pass as a female model at a fashion show. However his male persona was obviously gay, and was subjected to taunts and jeers.

In 1947 John was mugged, and his attackers accused him to the police as trying to hustle them. Herbert was charged, convicted and sent to Guelph Reformatory for six months. There he was beaten and raped, but he was also able to wear drag and curl his hair. On release he continued in drag. However a few years later he was recognized by one of the cops who had arrested him before. This time he was sent to the Mimico Reformatory.

In 1953 John toured Canada as a female impersonator with Allan Maloney in Paris After Midnight. He then attended both ballet and theatre school. He decided on the theatre. He used his middle name as one of his sisters was also in theatre.

In the 1960s John Herbert was artistic director of three Toronto companies in succession. For Halloween 1962, John joined Katherine Cummings and others to run the spectator gauntlet into Letros Tavern for its annual drag event.

In 1964, Canada’s centennial year, Herbert wrote Fortune and Men’s Eyes, based on his two terms in prison. It was rejected by the Toronto Workshop Productions. It was announced for the 1965 Stratford Festival, but then forbidden by the Board of Directors for public performance, although it was performed privately for the Stratford actors. Herbert produced and directed Jean Genet’s The Maids. This was the first Genet play in Toronto. Critic Nathan Cohen of the Toronto Star attended, and later sent Fortune and Men’s Eyes to David Rothenberg in New York.

Rothenberg opened the play Off-Broadway and it ran for a year. This was two years before homosexuality was decriminalized in Canada, and two years before Stonewall. The play was performed to great acclaim, but also controversy, in Los Angeles, London and Paris. It was filmed by MGM in 1970 in a former Quebec City prison with US actors.