LOS ANGELES, USA – The sad news of Paul Reubens, the man who brought to life Pee-wee Herman for four decades, who championed that it was okay to be weird or different, brought out an avalanche of tributes from his friends and fans.

The man-child who burst into the scene, embraced by many but annoying some, and who was, without a doubt, a complete original – with his too-small gray suit, red bow tie and lips, buzz cut, and squeaky, high-pitched voice (and that laugh, “Ha ha!”) – died last July 30 at 70.

With his work, especially in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Reubens left a queer legacy with his winking humor that sailed over children’s minds but headed straight to the parents’ and adults’ heads. Generations embraced his kitschiness and campiness, which made him an LGBTQ+ icon.

News of the passing of the comic actor behind the quirky persona, who brought out equally eccentric characters in his shows and movies, inspired a deluge of reminiscences – some surprising – and sharing of favorite scenes featuring him.

David Hasselhoff, for one, revealed in his social media ode, “Paul Reubens was a great, great friend. He gave me Muppets for my birthday and never forgot anyone’s birthday from our class. He was in my class at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) and [we were] roommates! He was always kind to me and everyone. He will be missed.”

Who knew Pee-wee and the Knight Rider/Michael Buchannon were roomies once?

Reubens’ thoughtful birthday greetings that lasted all day to each of his friends – with reportedly hilarious GIFs and memes – were what many bared on social media as they mourned and celebrated his life.

Jane Lynch posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Paul sent everyone he knew multiple birthday GIFs all throughout their special day. Mine was just a few weeks ago. July 14. I got a bunch via email too. Goodbye sweet, friend.”

Many more stars, including Joe Manganiello, Patton Oswalt, and Kathy Griffin, posted about Reubens’ day-long birthday greetings.

Griffin added, “I did not know he was ill. The last time we spoke, I invited him to one of my dinner salons and he expressed that he did not want to come because he was worried about COVID. He came to my house after my Trump photo scandal and spent time with me calming me down.”

X, Facebook, and Instagram also came alive with posts of favorite or unforgettable scenes of Reubens in films and TV shows. Many fans shared again Reubens’ hilariously protracted death scene as Amilyn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer that displayed his comic genius.

One follower wrote, “RIP Paul Reubens. This scene has lived rent-free in my head since the day I saw it. Thank you for all the laughs.” Another commented, “And with that death scene, he lives on forever. RIP Paul.”

Reubens, who earned 14 Emmy Awards nominations and won twice, gave his final performance as Pee-wee in Pee-wee Herman Radio Hour, a one-time KCRW show where he played his favorite classic soul songs. Pee-wee’s Playhouse characters, including Conky (Josh Myers), Chairry (Alison Mork) and Miss Yvonne (Lynne Marie Stewart), and guests Charo and Jack White joined the radio show that no one knew would be Pee-wee’s last.

Parade wrote about that radio show’s producers, Julia Thorn and Julia Smith: “Though the producers didn’t know at the time that Reubens had cancer, there was a clue in hindsight, according to Thorn: ‘The only indications that I had were that I knew that he didn’t have it in him to do the character physically anymore.’ ”

Upon Reubens’ death, his estate released this statement penned by the actor himself: “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the past six years. I have always felt a huge amount of love from my friends, fans, and supporters. I have loved you all so much and loved making art for you.”

Reubens asked that donations may be made in his late parents’ names, Judy and Milton Rubenfeld (he came up with the names of Pee-wee’s parents, Herman Herman and Honny Herman) to Stand Up 2 Cancer or organizations focusing on dementia or Alzheimer’s care and research.

A transcript from an HFPA interview with Reubens yielded more insights into the brilliant man who usually hid behind his rouge-faced persona. The transcript reeked of his tongue-in-cheek humor.

It was December 1985, a few months after his first feature film and Tim Burton’s directing debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, was released and became a hit.

Reubens was already a TV and live stage star but the box office success of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure put him on the cusp of Hollywood stardom.

Asked about his career journey, Reubens began, “I was born in Peekskill, upstate New York, in the same hospital as Mel Gibson, ironically enough. I grew up in Arizona and on the west coast of Florida.”

“Then, I came out here (Los Angeles) in 1971 and started working at the California Institute of the Arts, which is the Walt Disney School (founded by Walt Disney). I worked there for a while, moved down to Hollywood and then became a giant film star.”

The New York native, who grew up in a Jewish family, loved to perform even in his childhood. Reuben’s parents – his father was a car salesman who was one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force while his mother was a teacher – nurtured their son’s early acting inclinations.

“I always wanted to perform since I was very little,” he recalled. “In the first house where I was born, we had a stage that my dad built for me in the basement so I used to perform on the stage and put on little plays and stuff like that.”

“One time, we had a play where my friends wanted to come over and be in the plays because they thought my house and stage were cool. Since it was my stage, they had to have me be in the play so they would write these really crummy little parts for me.”

“For example, in one play, I played a guy who got pushed off-stage into a big vat of acid right at the very beginning. They said, ‘Well, you were in it (play),’ kind of teasing me but I guess I showed them.”

Another anecdote shared by Reubens further showed how the family nurtured his creative spirit. “When I was younger, our house was the kind of place where everybody would want to get invited over for dinner because it was always like better than watching TV or anything. Because it was so wild around my house with a lot of people.”

“One time, we took this family vacation to Disneyland when I was young, from way across the country. We camped out all the way across the country.”

“We get to Disneyland and this has been this thing we’d been planning for months and months in advance. We paid for the reservations at the Disneyland Hotel. Nobody in the family had been to Disneyland and it was really exciting.”

“So we get there and they’re having a big life insurance convention. They wouldn’t honor our reservations.”

“So my dad went, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but we paid for these reservations already. We got little kids here and stuff. We got to stay here.’ But they said, ‘No, I’m sorry, but, you know, the hotel is overbooked.’”

“So my dad insisted that our whole family camp out in the lobby of the Disneyland Hotel because of these guys who wouldn’t do anything to help us or anything.”

“We’d been on this camping trip so we had all these inflatable mattresses with us. My dad strung a rope up across the big crystal chandeliers. My mom hung like underwear and junk on it.”

“We had college kids come over and were going like, ‘We’ll picket for you if you want.’ It was really crazy.”

“We were on the radio because they have a little radio branch of a radio station in the hotel. They came on and said, ‘There are people camped out in the lobby’ and all that stuff.”

“And my dad almost got in a fight with a security guy. They tried to pick up my dad and do all that but he picked up the guy and went, ‘Better not do anything here because we paid for this.’”

“And then at two or three o’clock in the morning, the manager came down, and he said, ‘We’ve already fixed everything up, Mr. Herman. We got some accommodations for you.’ ”

“But by that time, my dad was really having a good time. We all jumped up because we were little and we were all really excited by the attention and stuff. My dad went, ‘No, no, you wait right here. I’ll go take a look at it first.’ ”

“So we had to wait there and he went up. They had put like five or six cots up in the banquet room. So my dad said, ‘I think I like it much better down here.’”

“Finally, they got us a couple of suites at this brand new hotel that was right across from Disneyland. So we went over there.”

“When we got there, the staff of the Disneyland Hotel had called the staff of this new hotel and so we arrived in a limousine which was the first time I was ever in a limousine.”

“We got to the hotel and the whole staff of the hotel was outside to greet us, cheering and everything. So we were like celebrities.”

“And for the whole four days we were at Disneyland, people would point us out and go, like, ‘That’s them right there,’ whispering. So that gives you a pretty good idea of my family.”

He idolized Lucille Ball very early on. “When I was going to elementary school, we were having some kind of testing about how television was affecting children.”

“So I had to go in and get interviewed by a psychiatrist because they said I Love Lucy was my favorite TV show and you were supposed to say some kids’ show, I guess, but I watched her a lot.”

He explained his nickname’s origins: “It’s a nickname, kind of a shrimp, and so all the kids called me Pee-wee and my parents started picking up on it because they never liked that name very much.”

“But then my friends would always call the house and say, ‘Mrs. Herman, can I speak to Pee-Wee?’ and she’d go, ‘No, there’s no Pee-Wee here.’ ”

“Finally, she had to sort of give in because, you know, as you get older, you start becoming a teenager and everything and people would give her such a hard time.”

“So they started calling me Pee-wee and then, after about 10 years of being called one name, you start thinking it’s your name. So I just figured, why tamper with success, really.”

On his voice, which The New York Times described as one that “would shoot up several decibels without warning,” he said, “Yeah, that’s my natural voice depending on what time of day it is and how much I’ve been using it. Like in a movie situation where we’ve been working all day, and I talk a lot, my voice sounds a lot different than now.”

“But this is pretty close to it, depending on, how swollen my adenoids are at the time, I guess.”

No surprise, he found in Tim Burton a kindred spirit. “It was really great. Tim Burton and I were like really into doing the whole movie. And it was really kind of spooky and eerie in a way because it seemed like we had experienced the same type of things or the exact same things in different parts of the country when we were growing up.”

“Like something would happen on a particular day of shooting, and I would go, ‘You know, Tim, that reminds me of a story.’ And I would start to go into some story about my childhood and he would go, ‘I did the same thing.’ Sort of things like that. “

“So we were really in sync. We had a lot of similar things happen and we’re similar types, certainly. A lot of people think we’re brothers when they see us because we look sort of alike.”

Pee-wee was born in Reubens’ improv exercise in 1978 with The Groundlings, a comedy troupe based in LA. A rejection by Saturday Night Live for Reubens to become a regular motivated him to borrow money and start a Pee-wee live show. The Pee-wee Herman Show sold out for five months at the Roxy Theatre.

The show’s success across the US, including New York, caught the attention of Warner Bros. which asked Reubens to write a Pee-wee Herman movie. The rest, as the cliché goes, is Tinseltown history.

“The Pee-wee character evolved over time,” he looked back. “It was something that I developed during my comedy performances and it just took on a life of its own.”

“As for getting tired of it, not really. Pee-wee has become such an iconic and beloved character. And people still enjoy it so I’m happy to keep bringing him to life.”

“Plus, it allows me to explore different aspects of comedy and entertainment which is always exciting. So, I embrace the character and the image associated with it.”

Reuben’s arrest for indecent exposure in an adult movie house in 1991 and child pornography possession charges in 2001 (which were eventually dropped) derailed his rise. He kept a low profile for several years and made a successful comeback, starting with a new stage show in 2010.

Only 33 years old at the time of this HFPA interview, Reubens talked about writing an autobiography.

“I’ve already started working on part of it – the struggle years, that kind of stuff, which is a lot easier to write when you’ve already kind of made it,” he revealed. “Because then you don’t have to be struggling to write about your struggle.”

“This way, you can relax and write about it all…but see, I feel like I haven’t lived enough yet to really hand it in. I gotta probably have a long career now.”

“And then I’ll hand it in and see if Jackie (the late Jacqueline Kennedy, who was a consulting editor at Viking at the time) will publish it.”

Reubens’ publicist confirmed that before he passed away, the actor finished this memoir, which will hopefully be published.

Reubens’ words to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2020 sounded upbeat and poignant at the same time, given his recent death: “I’ve been smart and intuitive. Happy, sad, low and elated. I’ve learned many things and feel like I’ve become wise. I have very few regrets.”

“And above all, I’ve been wonderfully blessed and lucky. I have a fantastic book in me and I’m excited to finish it and then play myself in the movie version!” – Rappler.com