Paul Reubens, actor and comedian who created Pee-wee Herman, dead at 70
Actor died years after a cancer diagnosis, a representative told CBC News
Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian best known for playing the eccentric character Pee-wee Herman, is dead at the age of 70, a representative confirmed to CBC News.
Reubens died years after being diagnosed with cancer, a fact he hadn't made public, according to a statement from the representative that was also shared on the performer's social media.
"A gifted and prolific talent, he will forever live in the comedy pantheon and in our hearts as a treasured friend and man of remarkable character and generosity of spirit," the statement read.
Reubens's representatives also shared a statement that the actor wrote before his death.
"Please accept my apology for not going public with what I've been facing the last six years," Reubens wrote. "I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you."
Beloved character on screen, stage
Reubens's Pee-wee Herman character, with his too-tight grey suit, white chunky loafers and red bow tie, would become a cultural constant in both adult and children's entertainment for much of the 1980s, though an indecent exposure arrest in 1991 would send the character into entertainment exile for years.
The laugh that punctuated every sentence, catch phrases like "I know you are but what am I" and a tabletop dance to the Champs' song Tequila in a biker bar in Pee-wee's Big Adventure were often imitated by fans, to the joy of some and the annoyance of others.
He created Pee-wee when he was part of the Los Angeles improv group the Groundlings in the late 1970s. The live Pee-wee Herman Show debuted at a Los Angeles theatre in 1981 and was a success with both children during matinees and adults at a midnight show.
The show closely resembled the format the Saturday morning TV Pee-wee's Playhouse would follow years later, with Herman living in a wild and wacky home with a series of stock-character visitors, including one, Captain Karl, played by the late Saturday Night Live star Phil Hartman.
Reubens took Pee-wee to the big screen in 1985's Pee-wee's Big Adventure. The film, in which Pee-wee's cherished bike is stolen, was said to be loosely based on Vittorio De Sica's Italian neo-realist classic The Bicycle Thief.
The film, directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Hartman of SNL, sent Pee-wee on a nationwide escapade. The movie was a success, grossing $40 million US, and continued to spawn a cult following for its oddball whimsy.
A sequel followed three years later in the less well-received Big Top Pee-wee, in which Pee-wee seeks to join a circus. Reubens's character wouldn't get another movie starring role until 2016's Pee-wee's Big Holiday, for Netflix. Judd Apatow produced Pee-wee's big-screen revival.
Pee-wee's Playhouse ran for five seasons, earned 22 Emmys and attracted not only children but adults to Saturday morning TV.
'A gut feeling from the beginning'
Both silly and subversive and championing nonconformity, the Pee-wee universe was a trippy place, populated by such things as a talking armchair and a friendly pterodactyl.
The act was a hit because it worked on multiple levels, even though Reubens insists that wasn't the plan.
"It's for kids," Reubens told The Associated Press in 2010. "People have tried to get me for years to go, 'It wasn't really for kids, right?' Even the original show was for kids. I always censored myself to have it be kid-friendly.
"The whole thing has been just a gut feeling from the beginning," Reubens told the AP. "That's all it ever is and I think always ever be. Much as people want me to dissect it and explain it, I can't. One, I don't know, and two, I don't want to know, and three, I feel like I'll hex myself if I know."
Jimmy Kimmel posted on Instagram that "Paul Reubens was like no one else — a brilliant and original comedian who made kids and their parents laugh at the same time. He never forgot a birthday and shared his genuine delight for silliness with everyone he met."
Legal troubles tarnished reputation
But Reubens's career was at points overshadowed by legal troubles that tarnished his reputation as a squeaky-clean children's performer.
He was arrested in 1991 for indecent exposure at an adult movie theatre in Sarasota, Fla., a scandal that led the actor — who pleaded no contest and received a fine — to temporarily retire the Pee-wee Herman character for a number of years.
During that hiatus, Reubens was charged with a misdemeanor in 2002 for possessing child pornography. The police searched his home after they received a tip from a witness in a similar case involving the actor Jeffrey Jones.
Reubens claimed that the photos in question were part of a vintage erotica collection, and pleaded not guilty. The child pornography charges were dropped in 2004 after he pled guilty to a lesser charge of obscenity. He was given three years probation.
"The moment that I realized my name was going to be said in the same sentence as children and sex, that's really intense," Reubens told NBC in 2004. "That's something I knew from that very moment, whatever happens past that point, something's out there in the air that is really bad."
Reubens said he got plenty of offers to work, but told the AP that most of them wanted to take "advantage of the luridness of my situation," and he didn't want to do them.
"It just changed," he said. "Everything changed."
Born Paul Rubenfield in Peekskill, New York, Reubens, the eldest of three children, grew up primarily in Sarasota before going to Boston University and the California Institute of the Arts.
Reubens would also go on to act in non-Pee-wee roles, including in Burton's 1992 movie Batman Returns, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer film and a guest-star run on the TV series Murphy Brown.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from The Associated Press