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Arts & Culture

Paul Reubens, Who Played Pee-Wee Herman, Dies of Cancer at 70

Andrew Dalton, Associated Press
Reubens, who portrayed the young-at-heart character of Pee-wee Herman, had kept his cancer diagnosis private.
Paul Reubens on location filming 'Pee-wee's Big Holiday' on May 8, 2015 in New York City.  (Bobby Bank/GC Images)

Paul Reubens, who for years portrayed the young-at-heart character of Pee-wee Herman, has died after a private battle with cancer. He was 70.

Reubens died Sunday night after a six-year struggle with cancer that he did not make public, his publicist said in a statement.

“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Reubens said in a statement released with the announcement of his death. “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.”

Reubens made his name in the 1980s with the fun-loving character of Pee-wee Herman, which brought ostentatious camp to Saturday morning TV and the movie theater screen. The character with his too-tight gray suit, white chunky loafers and red bow tie was best known for the film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and the TV series Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

Herman 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 theater in 1981 and was a success with both kids during matinees and adults at a midnight show. HBO would air the show as a special.

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 was directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Phil Hartman of Saturday Night Live, and sent Pee-wee on a nationwide escapade. The movie was a success, grossing $40 million, and continued to spawn a cult following for its oddball whimsy.

Publicity still from ‘Pee Wee’s Playhouse,’ CBS TV’s comedy starring Paul Reubens and S. Epatha Merkerson, 1986. (John Kisch Archive/Getty Images)

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 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.

His television series, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, ran for five seasons, earned 22 Emmys and attracted not only children but adults to Saturday-morning TV.

Both silly and subversive and championing nonconformity, the Pee-wee universe was a surreal place, populated by things such as a talking armchair and a friendly pterodactyl. The host, who is fond of secret words and loves fruit salad so much he once married it, is prone to lines like, “I know you are, but what am I?” and “Why don’t you take a picture; it’ll last longer?” 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.”

KQED’s Gabe Meline and Associated Press Writer Alicia Rancilio and Film Writer Jake Coyle contributed to this report.

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