LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian whose Pee-wee Herman character — an overgrown boy in a tight gray suit and an unforgettable laugh — became a pop culture phenomenon in the 1980s, he has died at the age of 70.
Reubens, whose character delighted fans of the movie “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and the TV series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” died Sunday night after a six-year battle with the cancer he kept private, his publicist said in a statement. .
“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I have been dealing with for the past six years,” Reubens said in a statement released Monday with the announcement of his death. “I have always felt a great deal of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”
Created for the stage, Pee-wee in his chunky white loafers and red tie would become a cultural fixture 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. .
Fans often mimicked the staccato laugh that punctuated each line, lines like “I know you are, but what about me” and a table dance to Camps’ song “Tequila” at a biker bar in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”, to the joy of some and the displeasure of others.
Reubens 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 in a Los Angeles theater in 1981 and was a hit with both kids during matinees and adults at a midnight showing.
The show closely resembled the Saturday morning format “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” would follow years later, with Herman living in a wild and wacky house with a series of character visitors, including one, Captain Karl, played by deceased.” Saturday Night Live star Phil Hartman.
HBO would air the show as a special.
Reubens brought Pee-wee to the big screen with 1985’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” which takes the character outside for a national escapade. The film, in which Pee-wee’s beloved bicycle is stolen, was said to be based on Vittorio De Sica’s Italian neorealist classic, “The Bicycle Thief.” Directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Hartman, the film was a hit, grossing $40 million, and went on to generate a cult following for its outlandish 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’ character would not have another starring film role until 2016’s Pee-wee’s Big Holiday,” by Netflix. Judd Apatow produced the big-screen Pee-wee revival.
His television series, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” ran for five seasons, won 22 Emmys and drew not only children but adults to Saturday morning television.
Jimmy Kimmel posted on Instagram that “Paul Reubens was like no one else: a brilliant, original comic who made kids and their parents laugh at the same time. He never forgot a birthday and shared his true joy in silliness with everyone that he met”.
Both silly and subversive and championing non-conformity, the Pee-wee universe was a trippy place, populated by things like a talking armchair and a friendly pterodactyl.
Director Guillermo del Toro tweeted Monday that Reubens was “one of the patron saints of all misfit, weird, misfit, wonderful, and miraculous oddities.”
The event was a success because it worked on multiple levels, though Reubens insists that wasn’t the plan.
“It’s for kids,” Reubens told The Associated Press in 2010. “People have been trying to get me to say for years, ‘It wasn’t really for kids, was it?’ Even the original show was for kids. I always censored myself for it being kid-friendly.
“This has all been just a gut feeling from the beginning,” Reubens told the AP. “That’s all it is and I think it always will be. As 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 have a feeling that I must curse myself if I know.”
Reubens’ career was derailed when he was arrested for indecent exposure at an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Florida, the city where he grew up. They gave him a small fine but the damage was incalculable.
He became the frequent subject of late-night talk show jokes, and Reubens’ perception immediately changed.
“The moment I realized that my name would be in the same sentence as kids and sex, it’s very intense,” Reubens told NBC in 2004. “That’s something I knew from that very moment, whatever happens after that moment, something is out there in the air that is really bad.”
Reubens said he received many offers to work, but told the AP that most of them wanted to “take advantage of the shame of my situation” and that he did not want to take them.
“It’s just changed,” he said. “Everything changed.”
He took an opportunity to poke fun at his tarnished image. Within weeks of his arrest, he would open the MTV Video Music Awards, taking the stage alone and saying, “Have you heard any good jokes lately?” (Herman’s appearances on MTV had fueled Pee-wee’s popularity in the early 1980s.)
In 2001, Reubens was arrested and charged with felony possession of child pornography after police seized images from his computer and photo collection, but the charge was reduced to one count of obscenity and was given three years probation.
Born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, in 1952, the oldest of three children, he grew up in Sarasota, where his parents ran a lighting store and performed comedy shows for neighborhood kids.
After high school he sought to study acting. He spent a year at Boston University, and then was rejected by the Juilliard School and Carnegie-Mellon University. So he enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts. This would lead to appearances at comedy clubs and local theaters and joining the Groundlings.
“Paul’s contributions to comedy and entertainment have left a lasting impact on the world, and he will be greatly missed by all members of the Groundlings community,” the group said in a statement.
After his 1991 arrest, he spent the decade playing mostly non-Peewee characters, including roles in Burton’s 1992 film “Batman Returns,” the film “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and a guest star in the television series “Murphy”. Brown.”
He also appeared in the 1999 comedy film “Mystery Men” and the 2001 Johnny Depp drug dealer drama “Blow.”
Reubens, who never lost his boyish good looks even in his 60s, slowly reintroduced Pee-wee, eventually making a Broadway adaptation of “The Pee-wee Herman Show” in 2010 and the film from Netflix in 2016.
Reubens was beloved by his fellow comedians, and Pee-wee fans embraced the culture.
“His surreal comedy and relentless kindness were a gift to us all,” Conan O’Brien tweeted. “Damn, that hurts.”
___
Associate press writer Alicia Rancilio and film writer Jake Coyle contributed to this report.
Español de Venezuela 
English