Paul Reubens, actor and comedian who created Pee-wee Herman, dead at 70 | CBC News

Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian best known for playing the eccentric character Pee-wee Herman, is dead at the age of 70, a representative confirmed to CBC News.

Reubens died years after being diagnosed with cancer, a fact he hadn’t made public, according to a statement from the representative that was also shared on the performer’s social media.

“A gifted and prolific talent, he will forever live in the comedy pantheon and in our hearts as a treasured friend and man of remarkable character and generosity of spirit,” the statement read.

Reubens’s representatives also shared a statement that the actor wrote before his death.

“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Reubens wrote. “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.”

Beloved character on screen, stage

Reubens’s Pee-wee Herman character, with his too-tight grey 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.

He 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 theatre in 1981 and was a success with both children 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.

WATCH | La-la-la-la! Pee-wee makes breakfast in the 1985 comedy: 

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

‘A gut feeling from the beginning’

Both silly and subversive and championing nonconformity, the Pee-wee universe was a trippy place, populated by such things 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.”