Before the world knew the name Paul Reubens, they knew the name Pee-wee Herman. That is the beloved character Paul himself created while at The Groundlings comedy troupe. In the early 1980s, Pee-wee began making waves on the comedy circuit and on television. By 1985, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure hit movie theaters and the character became a sensation.
It wasn’t long before Pee-wee Herman became a children’s show host, with Pee-wee’s Playhouse dominating Saturday morning television. The character would even get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, becoming a pop culture icon of the decade.
Some very public legal scandals forced Paul Reubens, the man behind the Pee-wee character, into the spotlight. Prior to his controversies, Paul maintained such privacy that he never made appearances out of character. His credits even read, “Pee-wee Herman as Himself,” with no mention of his name. Now, thanks to a new documentary, Paul lifted the veil off his life for the first time in a series of interviews before his untimely death.
Paul Reubens Posthumously Comes Out As Gay In New Documentary, Pee-wee As Himself
Paul Reubens passed away on July 30, 2023, at age 70. The actor and comedian had been suffering from cancer and kept his illness a secret. “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Paul wrote to fans in a message posted to his social media after 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.”
Prior to his death, Paul had been working with director Matt Wolf on a documentary about his life and career. The film, Pee-wee as Himself, recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The two-part documentary will also premiere on Max sometime in the spring.
According to Matt, he and Paul sat down for 40 hours worth of interviews over an extended period of time. There were even some moments which feel particularly poignant now. At one point in the film, Paul says, “Death is just so final… To be able to get your message in at the last minute, at some point, is incredible.”
This documentary will include unseen footage from Paul’s career and let fans in on information they didn’t previously know. One of the biggest revelations in the film has to do with Paul’s sexuality. Throughout his career, Paul was a closeted gay man, but he posthumously comes out in this film. In fact, Paul revealed he lived openly before his fame took off.
He even talked about a boyfriend he had named Guy, who was from Echo Park in Los Angeles. According to Paul, it was Guy’s humorous vocal tics that became a bit of inspiration for the Pee-wee Herman character. Paul remembered that Guy would always say things like, “Mmmm! Buttery!” in a Yoda-like voice. “You can see where that led me,” Paul said.
After premiering the Pee-wee Herman character during his time with The Groundlings comedy troupe in 1981, the stage show exploded in LA. This is when Paul made the decision to go back in the closet and keep his life private.
“I was out of the closet, and then I went back in the closet,” he reflected. “I wasn’t pursuing the Paul Reubens career; I was pursuing the Pee-wee Herman career.”
In one emotional moment in the film, Paul reflects on visiting Guy in the hospital as he was dying of AIDS. “To talk about seeing someone at death’s door,” he said. “He probably died a couple hours after that.”
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However, Paul said that while he continued to date throughout his life, he kept them concealed. “I had many, many secret relationships,” he said. He would only make appearances in character as Pee-wee Herman. His credits in film and television roles didn’t read “Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman.” Instead, they read, “Pee-wee Herman as Himself.”
Pee-wee Herman Becomes A Huge Success And A Pop Culture Icon Of The 1980s
In order to help make Pee-wee a household name, the character became a regular on Late Night With David Letterman from 1982 to 1985. As his audience grew, the Pee-wee character went on a sold-out national tour, and he was even able to make his film debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, in 1985.
In the documentary, Paul revealed some behind-the-scenes secrets of what happened on set. The one scene in the film that became iconic in regard to the Pee-wee character was when he danced to the song “Tequila” in a biker bar. In the film, Paul reveals he accidentally injured himself on set during one take.
“While I was up on the bar, I banged the h*** out of my head on a beam,” he remembered. “It’s the take we used.”
The film was directed by a newcomer named Tim Burton, and it became a huge box office success. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure wound up grossing $40 million off a $6 million budget. However, while Pee-wee was experiencing the highest highs, Paul says he was experiencing some pretty rough lows.
“I hid behind an alter ego,” he said. “I spent my entire adult life hiding I was a huge weed head.” He then goes further regarding being in the closet. “I was secretive about my sexuality even to my friends [out of] self-hatred or self-preservation,” he added. “I was conflicted about sexuality. But fame was way more complicated.”
Paul didn’t stop with film success, either. He would go on to conquer the world of Saturday morning kids’ television. In 1986, his show Pee-wee’s Playhouse premiered on CBS. “I never really thought about being a children’s show host,” Paul said. “But the moment I heard it, it felt right.”
The show included memorable characters and mind-blowing animation that was ahead of its time. Critics loved it. The show won big at the Emmy Awards. However, in the documentary, it is revealed that Paul was demanding behind-the-scenes. “Paul had conflicts with most everyone he worked with — that’s just his nature,” Wayne White, the designer for the show, says in the film. “Paul could hold a grudge. He didn’t forgive easily.”
Phil Hartman helped develop the Pee-wee character and played Captain Carl in Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Phil was later cast on Saturday Night Live and left Pee-wee’s Playhouse after he had a falling out with Paul. While speaking about Phil in the documentary, Paul says, “He rose to the top. Good for him.”
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The Playhouse series was not only a huge success, but the Pee-wee character has become a pop culture phenomenon. So much so, that in 1988, Pee-wee Herman, not Paul Reubens, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. However, this was the same year that saw a flop in the form of Big Top Pee-wee, the follow-up to Big Adventure. “I went into shock,” Paul said of the experience.
Paul Stopped Cooperating With The Filmmaker When The Subject Of His Legal Scandal Came Up
By 1991, Paul had put an end to the Playhouse series and was rumored to have grown tired of living every day as Pee-wee. He had traveled back to his parents’ home in Sarasota, Florida, where he became the subject of a legal scandal.
Paul was arrested at an adult movie theater and was charged with indecent exposure. He ended up pleading no contest. The story, along with Paul’s mugshot, shocked people across the country and the Pee-wee empire went up in flames. Toy stores pulled their Pee-wee dolls from the shelves and CBS stopped airing Pee-wee’s Playhouse re-runs.
“I kept who I was a secret for a very long time,” he said in the documentary. “That really backfired when I got arrested. People had never seen a photo of me other than Pee-wee Herman. And all of a sudden, I had a Charlie Manson mugshot. I lost control of my anonymity. It was devastating.”
Friends helped Paul escape Sarasota without being caught by paparazzi by wearing a disguise. This included fake teeth, glasses and a hair cut. He stayed with his friend Doris Duke in New Jersey for two weeks. “It’s shocking what horrible, awful stuff people think about me,” Paul said in the documentary. “It’s still a significant footnote… 30 years later I still feel the effects all the time.”
Paul was determined to repair his career and image. Later that year, Paul made an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards as Pee-wee and received an extremely positive welcome. He also appeared as himself on talk shows like Late Night With Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Paul even hired a crisis P.R. firm who staged a photo of him on a date with a woman at a restaurant in Los Angeles.
Appearing to date women was something Paul was doing more frequently in the aftermath of his arrest. One of the women he was frequently seen with was actress Debi Mazar. Debi appears in the documentary as well and still speaks fondly of their time together. “He was my boyfriend,” Debi says in the film. “I know people will say, ‘He was gay!’ So what?”
Police would raid Paul’s home in 2001, and he was charged with possessing materials thought to be child pornography. However, Paul denied this characterization and said the photographs were just “vintage erotica.” In fact, some of the items in Paul’s collection could be seen at college libraries. In 2004, the charges were dropped and Paul ended up pleading guilty to a lesser obscenity charge.
Paul’s friends Debi, David Arquette and his then-wife, Courteney Cox, all supported him throughout this time. When this topic comes up in the film, text on-screen tells viewers that Paul stopped cooperating with Matt and never completed another interview. He was worried about how the complexities of his story would be handled in the finished product.
In 2010, Pee-wee made a comeback when Paul brought the character back for The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway. In 2011, the show was aired as an HBO special. He also premiered Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, another Pee-wee movie, on Netflix in 2016.
Paul not only kept his cancer battle a secret from his close friends and loved ones, but even Matt. Paul never disclosed his health struggle with anyone working on the film and left Matt one final voice memo, which is heard in the documentary. In the voice memo, Paul is heard speaking in a weak voice.
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“More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was for people to see who I really am, and how painful and dreadful it was to be labeled something I wasn’t. To be labeled a pariah; to have people be scared of you, or untrusting. My whole career, everything I did and wrote, was based in love,” Paul is heard saying.
