Pee-wee Herman (1952-2023) - a photo on Flickriver

Pee-wee Herman (1952-2023)

American postcard in The Ludlow Collection by Classico San Francisco Inc., no. FC-298.

The American actor Paul Reubens (1952), known for his comic alter ego Pee-wee Herman, died on 27 August at the age of 70. Reubens won several Emmy Awards for his role, which he played for many years such as in the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) and the TV series Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986). Reubens had been suffering from cancer for several years.

Paul Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, in 1952. His parents were Judy (Rosen), a teacher, and Milton Rubenfeld, a car salesman who had flown for the air forces of the U.S., U.K., and Israel, becoming one of the latter country's pioneering pilots. Paul grew up in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents owned a lamp store. During winters, The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus called Sarasota home, and young Paul counted such big-top families as the Wallendas and the Zacchinis among his neighbours. When he was 11 years old, he joined the local Asolo Theater, and during the next six years, he appeared in various plays. After graduating from Sarasota High School in 1970, he began studying at Boston University. He dropped out after one year. Reubens moved as Paul Reubens to Hollywood and was taught at the California Institute of the Arts. He began his career as part of the comedy company The Groundlings in which he introduced Pee-wee Herman in 1978. He debuted on-screen alongside John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray in the television comedy Things We Did Last Summer (Gary Weis, 1977), and played one of the larger roles alongside Cheech Marin in the comedy Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (Tommy Chong, 1980). In 1980, he came up with The Pee-wee Herman Show which ran for five sellout months at Los Angeles's Roxy nightclub, and HBO taped the performance and aired it in 1981 as a special. Pee-wee is a childlike but grown-up man who has all kinds of adventures. The character grew into a much-loved character. Tim Burton made his first feature-length film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985) from a script by Reubens. The film grossed 5 times its cost and became a cult film. CBS signed him to act/produce and direct its live-action children's program called Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986). Reubens received complete creative control, albeit with three minor exceptions. During its five-year run on CBS, he never generally appeared as himself. Other films were developed around Pee-Wee and a theatre show was also created. Reubens won several Emmy Awards for his role, which he played for many years.

In 1991, Paul Reubens was arrested after masturbating in a porn cinema, which led to a lot of negative media attention. Thereupon, he decided to stop playing Pee-wee. One year after he was taken into custody, he appeared in Burton's Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992) as the Penguin's unloving father. His guest role in the television series Murphy Brown earned him another Emmy nomination in 1995. His larger roles include those in the horror comedy Buffy - The Vampire Killer (Fran Rubel Kuzui, 1992) and the fantasy comedy Mystery Men (Kinka Usher, 1999), in which he appeared alongside Ben Stiller. In 2001, he was charged with possession of pornography. According to the prosecution, some of the photos were shots of children, but the older material was legal at the time of publication, according to Reubens. The case was downgraded to "obscenity" and Reubens was fined $135. In the following years, the Pee-wee character appeared in public more and more often again and, after a long break, the Netflix film Pee-wee's Big Holiday (John Lee, 2016) was released. Reubens was also seen or heard in other productions, including The Nightmare Before Christmas (Tim Burton, 1993), Matilda (Danny DeVito, 1996), Dr Dolittle (Betty Thomas, 1998) with Eddie Murphy, and The Smurfs (Raja Gosnell, 2011). His death on 27 August 2023 in Los Angeles was announced on Reubens' Instagram page. The actor wrote the message before his death and in it, he says he has been ill for six years, something he kept secret from the public. "I have always received a lot of love from my fans. I have loved you guys tremendously, and loved entertaining you," the American said.

Sources: Nu.nl, NOS.nl, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

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Taken on: July 31, 2023

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