Paul Reubens

Paul Reubens (; né Rubenfeld; August 27, 1952 – July 30, 2023) was an American actor and comedian, widely known for creating and portraying the character Pee-wee Herman.

Born in Peekskill, New York and raised in both Oneonta, New York and Sarasota, Florida, Reubens joined the Los Angeles-based troupe the Groundlings in the 1970s and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. Reubens developed his Pee-wee character at the Groundlings. After a failed audition for Saturday Night Live, Reubens debuted a stage show starring Pee-wee, The Pee-wee Herman Show, in 1981. Pee-wee quickly became a cult figure and, for the next decade, Reubens completely committed to his character, conducting all public appearances and interviews as Pee-wee. He produced and wrote a feature film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), directed by Tim Burton, which was a financial and critical success. Its sequel, Big Top Pee-wee (1988), was less successful. Between 1986 and 1990, Reubens starred as Pee-wee in the CBS Saturday-morning children's program Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in an adult theater in Sarasota in 1991. The arrest garnered major national media attention, and though he received support from some colleagues in the entertainment industry, it significantly harmed Reubens' career. Reubens maintained a low profile through much of the 1990s as a result, before returning to appearing in big-budget projects including Mystery Men (1999) and Blow (2001). He subsequently began giving interviews as himself rather than as Pee-wee. Reubens was later investigated and charged with child pornography offenses in 2002, which he strongly denied. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obscenity charge as part of a plea deal.

Reubens acted in numerous television shows such as Murphy Brown, 30 Rock, Portlandia, and The Blacklist. He revived the Pee-wee character in the 2010s, performing on stage in The Pee-wee Herman Show, which ran in Los Angeles and on Broadway, and writing and co-starring in the Netflix original film Pee-wee's Big Holiday (2016).

Reubens's Pee-wee character maintained an enduring popularity with both children and adults. Playhouse garnered 15 Emmy Awards during its initial run, and was aired again on late-night television in the 2000s, during which TV Guide dubbed it among the top ten cult classic television programs. Reubens died in July 2023 from cancer.

Early life and education

Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, on August 27, 1952, and grew up in a Jewish family, where his parents, Judy (née Rosen) and Milton Rubenfeld, owned a lamp store. His mother was a teacher. His father was an automobile salesperson who had flown for Britain's Royal Air Force and for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, and later became one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. An Orthodox Jew, he was one of five Jewish pilots to fly against Arab forces in smuggled fighter planes.

Reubens had two younger siblings: Luke (born 1958), a dog trainer, and Abby (born 1953), an attorney and a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.

Reubens spent his early childhood in Oneonta, New York before moving with his parents to Sarasota, Florida at the age of nine. As a child, he frequented the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, whose winter headquarters were in Sarasota. The circus atmosphere sparked Reubens's interest in entertainment and influenced his later work. He also loved to watch reruns of I Love Lucy, which made him want to make people laugh. At age five, Reubens asked his father to build him a stage where he and his siblings would act out plays.

Reubens attended Sarasota High School, where he was named president of the National Thespian Society. He was accepted into Northwestern University's summer program for gifted high-school students, joined the local Asolo Theater, Players of Sarasota Theater, and appeared in several plays.

After high school graduation, he attended Plymouth State University for one semester. He then attended Boston University. When he began auditioning for acting schools, he was turned down by the Juilliard School and Carnegie Mellon University. Reubens was accepted at the California Institute of the Arts, where he graduated with a BFA in Theatre in 1973. As a student, Reubens was described by The New Yorker as "the wildest of a wild bunch". He acted in a student film in Cher-inspired mermaid drag and kissed all of his classmates at a Valentine's Day kissing booth. Some of his CalArts classmates included Katey Sagal, Michael Richards and David Hasselhoff, who was his roommate for a time. Sagal described Reubens as her "fantastically colorful best buddy" down the hall from her in the dorm, who would listen to her play music on the piano. She recalled that Reubens's dorm room was like a real-life Pee-wee's Playhouse. "He was the only one with a decorated dorm room, everyone else had posters with Scotch tape, and you'd go to his room and it was a party." After graduating, his early jobs in California included working in restaurant kitchens and as a Fuller Brush salesman.

Career

1977–1979: Comedy beginnings

In the 1970s, Reubens began performing at local comedy clubs. Starting in 1977, he made 14 guest appearances on The Gong Show, four of which involved a boy–girl act he had developed with Charlotte McGinnis entitled The Hilarious Betty and Eddie. During his stint on The Gong Show, Reubens introduced a Native American lounge-singer character named Jay Longtoe, decked out in sequined loincloth and feathered headdress. "This doesn't say much for the audience," Reubens explains in the documentary Pee-wee as Himself. "But the audience ate it up and went crazy. So I was like, Hey, I'm getting laughs...I had no clue it was like a billion percent—not even borderline racist—I mean, it was full-on racist. Until Pee-wee Herman came along, I thought that was my ticket. I thought I would be propelled to stardom as a Native American lounge singer. Thank God that wasn't the case."

He soon joined the Los Angeles–based improvisational comedy team the Groundlings. He remained a troupe member for six years, working with Bob McClurg, Edie McClurg, John Paragon, Susan Barnes, and Phil Hartman. Hartman and Reubens became friends, and they often wrote and worked together on material. In 1980, Reubens had a small part as a waiter in The Blues Brothers.

The character of "Pee-wee Herman" originated during a 1978 improvisation exercise with the Groundlings, where Reubens came up with the idea of a man who wanted to be a comic but was so inept at telling jokes that it was obvious to the audience that he would never make it. Fellow Groundling Phil Hartman afterwards helped Reubens develop the character while another Groundling, John Paragon, helped write the show. Despite being compared to other famous characters, such as Hergé's Tintin and Collodi's Pinocchio, Reubens said that there was no specific source for "Pee-wee" other than a collection of ideas. Pee-wee's voice originated in 1970 when Reubens appeared in a production of Life with Father, where he was cast as one of the most obnoxious characters in the play. For this role, Reubens adopted a cartoon-like way of speaking, which became Pee-wee's voice.

Pee-wee's first name came from a one-inch Pee Wee brand harmonica Reubens had as a child, and the surname Herman was the last name of an energetic boy Reubens knew from his youth. The original small, gray suit Pee-wee wore had been handmade for Groundlings Director and Founder Gary Austin, who passed it on to Reubens. The origin of the red tie is less clear, as Reubens claimed that "someone" handed him the "little kid bow tie" before a performance.

1981–1984: The Pee-wee Herman Show

Reubens auditioned for the Saturday Night Live 1980–1981 season on the same day as comedian Gilbert Gottfried. Reubens told Entertainment Weekly hiring both was not an option because they were "the same type of performer", and he knew immediately Gottfried would get the job. He also told the San Francisco Chronicle he believed that "the fix was in" because Gottfried was friends with one of the producers. Reubens was so angry and bitter that he decided he would borrow money and start his own show in Los Angeles using the character he had been developing during the previous few years, "Pee-wee Herman".