Paul Reuben, Popularly Known For His Character Pee-wee Herman, Dies Of Cancer At 70

Paul Reubens, an actor and comedian best known for playing Pee-wee Herman in films and television shows, has passed away. He was 70.

New Delhi: Paul Reubens, an actor and comedian best known for playing Pee-wee Herman in films and television shows, has passed away. He was 70. He passed away on Sunday night following a secret six-year battle with cancer, according to a statement released by his publicist. 

"Please accept my apology for not going public with what I've been facing the last six years, 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," Paul said in a statement released Monday with the announcement of his death.

The Pee-wee's Big Adventure movie and Pee-wee's Playhouse television series are best known for the character with the too-tight grey suit, thick white shoes, and red bow tie. Even though he was arrested for indecent exposure in 1991 and banished from the entertainment industry for years, the Pee-wee character would become a cultural staple for much of the 1980s.

In the late 1970s, Herman was a member of the Los Angeles improv group The Groundlings when he invented Pee-wee. In 1981, a Los Angeles theatre hosted the live Pee-wee Herman Show for the first time, and both children and adults enjoyed it.

The concept of the programme was very similar to that of the Saturday morning television Pee-wee's Playhouse years later; Herman lived in a wild and crazy house with a variety of stock characters, including one, Captain Karl, who was portrayed by the late Saturday Night Live actor Phil Hartman. In the story, Pee-wee longs to fly in secret.

In Pee-wee's Big Adventure from 1985, Paul brought Pee-wee to the big screen. The Bicycle Thief, an Italian neo-realist masterpiece directed by Vittorio De Sica, was considered to be a loose inspiration for the movie in which Pee-wee's beloved bicycle is taken. Pee-wee went on a cross-country adventure in the Tim Burton-directed movie, which Phil Hartman of Saturday Night Live also co-wrote. With a $40 million box office haul, the film was a hit and kept gaining cult status for its bizarre whimsy.

After authorities confiscated photographs from his computer and photo collection in 2001, Paul was detained and charged with misdemeanour possession of child pornography. However, the charge was later reduced to obscenity, and he was sentenced to three years of probation.

Paul Rubenfield, the eldest of three children, was born in Peekskill, New York, and spent much of his childhood there before attending Boston University and the California Institute of the Arts.

Paul would also play non-Pee-wee roles in films including 1992's Batman Returns from director Tim Burton, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, and an appearance on the Murphy Brown TV show.