Paul Reubens Net Worth

How much is Paul Reubens worth?

About Paul Reubens

In an improv session with The Groundlings in 1978, Reubens came up with the idea of a man who aspired to be a comic but was so bad at cracking jokes that it was evident to the audience that he would never make it, and thus “Pee-wee Herman” was born. Subsequently, Reubens’s fellow Groundling Phil Hartman provided assistance in shaping the character, while Reubens’s coworker John Paragon contributed to the show’s script.

Paul Rubenfeld was born in Peekskill, New York in 1952. His parents, Judy (Rosen) and Milton Rubenfeld, ran a lamp store in Sarasota, Florida, where Reubens spent his childhood. His mom was a school administrator. His father, a car salesman, was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, and he was a pioneering aviator in the fledgling Israeli Air Force during the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. As a practicing Jew, he was one of five Jewish pilots who used stolen planes to battle Arab forces.

Much of Reubens’ boyhood was spent in the New York town of Oneonta. Since the winter headquarters of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus were in Sarasota when he was a kid, he saw the show quite a few times. The exciting environment of the circus inspired Reubens’ later interest in the entertainment industry. After developing a boy-girl act with Charlotte McGinnis dubbed The Hilarious Betty and Eddie in the 1970s, Reubens began performing at local comedy clubs and made four guest appearances on The Gong Show (out of a total of fourteen guest appearances).

In 1970, when Reubens starred in a play called Life with Father, he gave the piece its most annoying character, Pee-wee. Reubens gave Pee-wee his distinctively cartoonish voice for this role. In the 1980s, Pee-little wee’s glen plaid clothes would have been laughed at, but by the late ’90s, he had become a “style icon”

Pee-wee Herman gained even more fans after Reubens made multiple appearances on Late Night with David Letterman as him in the early and mid-1980s. In the mid-1980s, Reubens took a brand new production of The Pee-wee Herman Show on a cross-country tour of the United States, with stops at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Caroline’s in New York City, and a sold-out Carnegie Hall in 1984.

For the 1980–1981 season of Saturday Night Live, Paul Reubens tried out for a role, but his buddy and the show’s producer, Gilbert Gottfried, who acted similarly to Reubens, was ultimately cast. After gaining a cult following, Reubens moved The Pee-wee Herman Act to the Roxy Theatre, where it played to sold-out crowds for five months (with midnight concerts for adults and weekly matinees for kids). In 1981, the show went mainstream when HBO televised it as part of the series On Location.

Reubens was arrested for the second time in 1983 and given two years of probation for marijuana possession, however judgement was postponed. Reubens fled to Nashville, where his sister and lawyer lived, on the night of his arrest, and then traveled to New Jersey to spend the next few months at his friend Doris Duke’s mansion.

Tim Burton was chosen to helm Pee-Big wee’s Adventure after Paul Reubens and the film’s producers viewed Vincent and Frankenweenie and were impressed. The film follows Pee-wee Herman as he travels across the country to recover his stolen bike. After its initial $7 million investment, the film earned $40,940,662 in domestic ticket sales. Pee-Big wee’s Adventure opened to mixed reviews in 1985, but it went on to become a cult classic.

Acting under the name Paul Mall, Reubens provided the voice of the ship’s computer in the 1986 film Flight of the Navigator. Star Tours is a motion simulator experience based on the Star Wars franchise that debuted in 1987 with Reubens lending his voice to the pilot droid RX-24, or Captain “Rex” The attraction can be found at Disneyland, Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, and Disneyland Paris.

CBS signed Paul Reubens in 1986 to star in, produce, and direct Pee-Playhouse, wee’s a live-action children’s program with a $325,000 per episode budget, the same as a prime-time sitcom, and with no creative interference from CBS; however CBS did require a few small adjustments over the years. Starting on September 13th, 1986, and ending on November 10th, 1990, Pee-Playhouse wee’s entertained audiences.

There were whispers that Reubens and his Big Top Pee-wee co-star Valeria Golino were dating in 1988 when they both attended the Oscars together. At a fake ceremony the next year in Shangri-La, Doris Duke’s mansion in Honolulu, Hawaii, Reubens married adopted daughter, Chandi Heffner, in the presence of Imelda Marcos. He established the Pee-wee brand, which at its peak in 1988 was responsible for over $25 million in sales of merchandise including toys, clothing, and more.

Throughout the 1990s, Reubens maintained a low profile, devoting himself to writing and collecting “everything from fake food, to lamps”. However, he did some dubbing and appeared in small roles in films like Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (Reubens played the Penguin’s father) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), as well as Matilda (1996, he played the mother), and Dunston Checks In (1996).

Pee-optimistic wee’s outlook and endearing eccentricity helped him become a pop culture icon overnight, and by 1989 he had earned a place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In Sarasota, Florida, in July of 1991, Reubens was arrested for masturbating during a movie showing at an adult cinema.

His arrest in 1991 received widespread media attention, and both Reubens and his persona soon became targets of mockery. Disney-MGM Studios removed off their studio tour a film featuring Pee-wee detailing the process of creating voice-over tracks. Pee-wee toys were discontinued by Toys “R” Us. On the 7th of November, 1991, Reubens entered a plea of no contest. Reubens’s record was cleared of the accusation, but he was sentenced to 75 hours of community service as part of the deal. He prepared and paid for two PSAs to raise awareness about the dangers of drug use as part of his community service.

After refusing to do so for years, Reubens finally made a public appearance in the role of Pee-wee at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards on September 5, where he famously questioned the crowd, “Heard any good jokes lately?” They applauded him from the floor. After then, Reubens only made one public appearance as Pee-wee in 1992, at a tribute to Minnie Pearl at the Grand Ole Opry.

His voice was used for a character in The Nightmare Before Christmas, another film directed by Tim Burton and released in 1993. In 2004, Reubens provided the voice of Lock for the computer game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge.

After meeting at movie premieres in 1993, Reubens began dating actress Debi Mazar. Afterward, Reubens said that Mazar was responsible for lifting the gloom that had followed his detention. In total, he made six appearances between 1995 and 1997. Reubens then got to work on a pilot for NBC based on You Can’t Take It with You, titled Meet the Muckles.

In Ted Demme’s thriller Blow from 2001, costarring Penélope Cruz and Johnny Depp, Paul Reubens portrays a flashy hairstylist who turns out to be a heroin dealer. His acting was so well received that he began to get offers from film producers.

The character of Rick, a member of the citizen’s patrol, on the hit Comedy Central series Reno 911! led to a bit part in the 2007 film Reno 911!: Miami. The 2006 TV movie Re-Animated, the animated shows Chowder, Tom Goes to the Mayor, and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! are just some of the Cartoon Network productions in which Reubens has voiced a brief role or made a guest appearance.

It was originally planned for Reubens to guest star as homeopathic antidepressant salesperson Alfredo Aldarisio in the third episode of Pushing Daisies in 2008, but the part ultimately went to Ral Esparza.

Reubens replaced Vibenius in episodes 7 and 9 of the series. In 2008, Reubens also filmed a public service announcement (PSA) for the website Unscrew America, which promotes the use of compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) and light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs as energy-saving alternatives to traditional incandescent lights.

He also had an appearance in Todd Solondz’s Wartime. While speaking with Gary Panter in January 2009, Reubens expressed optimism that the film adaptation of Pee-Big wee’s Adventure, which he and Panter co-wrote but had previously seen its first draft rejected, would soon find a distributor.

While in character as this character in December 2009, Reubens remarked, “already done, the script is already fully written; It’s ready to shoot.” Puppetland is where most of the action occurs, and claymation may be employed.

In January of 2009, Reubens gave some indication that talks were taking place to bring back his stage show, and in August, it was officially announced that The Pee-wee Herman Show would be returning to television.

In the episode “Legends of the Dark Mite” from Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2009), Reubens provided the voice of Bat-Mite. In January of 2010, Reubens returned to the character of Pee-wee for a short sketch on Funny or Die, using the same (slightly altered) set from Pee-Playhouse. wee’s In the sketch, Pee-wee returns home with an iPad that Steve Jobs has given him.

Over $3 million in advance ticket sales were made when the production moved to New York for a limited engagement at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre beginning on November 11, 2010.

On January 6, 2011, an additional performance was recorded for the HBO network. It premiered on March 19. Some movie websites announced in June 2010 that Paul Reubens and Judd Apatow were developing a new Pee-wee Herman movie.

Reubens had a cameo in the Happy Idiot music video by TV on the Radio in 2014. The rights to make a new Pee-wee film, named Pee-Big wee’s Holiday, were purchased by Netflix in February 2015; the film would be produced by Apatow and Reubens, directed by John Lee, and written by Reubens and Paul Rust. On March 18, 2016, the film premiered on Netflix to mostly good reviews.