Also to cite more of his great roles, that he was the voice of the alien ship in Flight of the Navigator. Additionally, his reprise as a vampire in What We Do in the Shadows was hilarious.
I liked him as The Spleen.
I thought it was clever of Gotham to cast Reubens as the Penguin’s father 20-odd years after he played the role in one of Tim Burton’s Batman films. Penguin’s mom in Gotham was played by Carol Kane who was apparently Reuben’s beard in the aftermath of the porn theater scandal.
Yeah. Made me really happy to see him getting some work. That role was kinda perfect for him- as was The Spleen as mentioned just up there somewhere.
Finished the documentary last night… very interesting and complicated. I had completely forgotten about the second arrest for having “pornography/obscene art”…I didn’t think it explained why he agreed to the obscenity charge instead of fighting it? I think getting pegged and having to register as a sex offender would be worse than a trial where they told about vintage gay porn? “This picture might be of a teenager” seems like a weak case?
Paul Reubens was actually “out” when he was in the groundlings and before he became famous. He was in a relationship with someone well before Pee-Wee made it big. It was when his Pee-Wee character was on the precipice of taking off, that he became very reserved as Paul Reubens. For years, when he would appear on talk shows and do interviews, it was always as Pee-Wee and never as Paul.
After Pee-Wee took off, when in between filming and appearances, he would grow his hair and beard out like he did in the early 70’s, and then he was Paul. He tried keeping his personas different. In his mind, I’m sure that Pee-Wee was straight and Paul was gay, and the fewer people that knew that truth was better for him. Remember when his fame was on the rise was in the late 70’s and early 80’s when we all thought that Elton John, David Bowie, and Freddie Mercury were Bi. ![]()
She died of cancer? Are we sure it wasn’t just a scam to fix her statue of the Virgin Mary?
Seriously, Always Sunny did a nice tribute to her at the end of the season finale (which she also appeared in).