Bio
Born: Paul Rubenfeld - August, 27/1952 - Peekskill, NY, USA
As a struggling comedian in the late seventies, Paul Reubens created an alter-ego named Pee-Wee Herman, who subsequently achieved success beyond Reubens' wildest and worst dreams. Pee-Wee landed jobs at comedy clubs that scoffed at Reubens. Pee-Wee starred in a hit feature film; Reubens languished in Cheech and Chong flicks. Pee-Wee became a television icon; Reubens provided voices for The Flintstone Funnies. Yet when Reubens was arrested for exposing himself in an adult theatre, it was Pee-Wee who incurred the media's wrath. And it was Paul Reubens whose career survived.
Born in upstate New York, Paul Reubenfeld grew up in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents owned and operated a lamp store. During winters, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus called Sarasota home, and young Paul counted such big-top families as the Wallendas and the Zacchinis among his neighbors. At the age of eleven, Reubenfeld joined the local Asolo Theater, and during the next six years, he appeared in a variety of plays. After graduating from high school, he attended Boston University for one year before deciding to seek his fortune as Paul Reubens in Hollywood.
Reubens enrolled as an acting major at the California Institute of the Arts and accepted a string of pay-the-rent jobs ranging from pizza chef to Fuller Brush salesman. During the mid-seventies, his acting career grew slowly and steadily with small parts in regional theatre productions, routines at local comedy clubs, and four appearances on The Gong Show (as four different contestants). During this period of educational and employment mayhem, Reubens joined an improvisational comedy troupe called the Groundlings. The popular gang of yuksters, whose roster has included Conan O'Brien, Lisa Kudrow, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, and Julia Sweeney, wrung laughs from audiences with skits starring scads of imaginative, self-created characters.
Among Reubens' contributions to this comedic community were a philandering husband named Moses Feldman, an Indian chief named Jay Longtoe, and the now infamous Pee-Wee Herman, who debuted in 1978. Pee-Wee was a giggling man-child of indeterminate age and sexuality who possessed a sarcastic enthusiasm for the popular culture of the fifties and sixties. The gawky character's wardrobe consisted of a gray suit (several sizes too small), a white shirt accessorized with a red clip-on bow tie, and white patent-leather loafers. Pee-Wee wore his jet-black hair military short with a defiant tuft in front, and he accentuated his lily-white complexion with rosy cheeks and crimson lips. Reubens drew inspiration for Pee-Wee's gawky mannerisms from an unfortunate youth he had attended summer camp with, and derived his creation's boyish voice from a character he played as a child actor.
Although Pee-Wee appeared for only ten minutes of the Groundlings show, he nonetheless built up a considerable following and became a breakout star. In 1981, The Pee-Wee Herman Show ran for five sellout months at Los Angeles' Roxy night club, and HBO taped the performance and aired it as a special. Now a genuine comedy-circuit star, Pee-Wee became a frequent guest of David Letterman and a favorite at Caroline's in New York. In 1984, Pee-Wee sold out Carnegie Hall.
Reubens then auditioned for the cast of Saturday Night Live, but when that didn't pan out, he began writing a feature-length screenplay for Pee-Wee to star in, and asked friend Tim Burton to direct. Released to wildly divergent reviews, in 1985, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure followed its star cross-country in a manic search for his beloved, stolen bicycle. The $7-million picture ended up grossing $45 million. CBS, which had been losing juvenile audiences to cable programming, was looking to shore up its Saturday-morning lineup. They signed Reubens to produce a live-action children's program called Pee-Wee's Playhouse. They doled out an eye-popping budget of $325,000 per episode--the same price as a prime-time sitcom. Reubens received complete creative control, albeit with three minor exceptions: he was forbidden to say, "If you show me yours, I'll show you mine," to stab potatoes with pencils, or to walk around with toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Launched in 1986, the program became a ratings success by attracting not only children but the adults who originally made Pee-Wee a phenomenon.
During the Playhouse's five-year run, Reubens never appeared in public as himself. He even granted print interviews in full Pee-Wee regalia. The image of Pee-Wee, however, was shattered forever on July 26, 1991. On summer hiatus, Reubens was visiting his parents in Sarasota and sought escape from boredom by catching a showing of the X-rated film Nancy Nurse. Unfortunately, Reubens fell victim to a police sting operation and was arrested on indecent exposure charges when detectives allegedly saw him masturbating. He was released on $219 bail and nobody seemed the wiser until someone recognized Pee-Wee Herman beneath Reubens' vacation-time long hair and goatee. The media went wild: kids show star arrested in sex scandal. CBS promptly cancelled the Playhouse, related merchandise was pulled from store shelves, and Pee-Wee's star was yanked from Hollywood Boulevard. Reubens agreed to pay a fifty-dollar fine plus eighty-five dollars in court costs to Sarasota County, and he produced a thirty-second anti-drug commercial. For its part of the bargain, the county sealed all documents pertaining to the actor's arrest and did not burden Reubens with a criminal record.
The scandal marked the virtual death of Pee-Wee Herman. Reubens appeared as his favorite character for one last time at that fall's MTV Music Video Awards. He bounded onto the stage before a standing ovation and asked, "Heard any good jokes lately?" in reference to being the butt of many current punchlines. "What was that one? Oh, so funny I forgot to laugh!" The enthusiastic reception was not surprising, as Pee-Wee had received fifteen thousand supportive letters during the scandal. Regardless, Reubens had recently vowed not to portray Pee-Wee much longer and used his arrest as an excuse to pursue other roles. His career may never soar to Herman heights again, but Reubens has landed a series of offbeat character roles. In the summer of 1992, he appeared in Tim Burton's Batman Returns as the Penguin's unloving father, and as a vampire henchman in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Subsequent gigs have included voice work for Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), a healthy stint on Murphy Brown, and the portrayal of an animal-control officer in Dunston Checks In (1996). Reubens more recently co-starred with Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman in the screen adaptation of children's author Roald Dahl's Matilda (1996), and appeared alongside the lovely Rene Russo in Buddy.
© Mr Showbiz