Paul Reubens
Born: 27 August 1952
Where: Peekskill, New York
In 1970 Paul graduated from Sarasota High School and went on to Boston University before deciding to head for Hollywood and a glittering career on screen.
He enrolled in an acting class at the California Institute of the Arts and paid the rent with pitiful wages from pizza parlours.
Throughout the 70's his acting career grew steadily with small roles in theatre productions and guest appearances in comedy clubs and on The Gong Show.
He also joined an improvisational comedy troupe called The Groudlings, who were the original launchpad for Conan O'Brian and Lisa Kudrow.
It was his characterization of Pee Wee Herman with The Groudlings that shot him up into the world of TV. Pee-Wee was a comedy man-child of indeterminate age and sexuality who created a sarcastic enthusiasm for the popular culture of the 50's and 60's.
He consistently wore a grey suit with a white short sleeved shirt and a red clip-on bow tie.
In 1981 The Pee Wee Herman Show, ran for five sellout months at The Roxy Night-club in LA and TV channels taped it and aired it.
Now a genuine comedy circuit star, he became a frequent guest of David Letterman and eventually auditioned for Saturday Night Live and started writing a feature length screenplay for Pee Wee.
Pee Wee's Big Adventure was released in 1985, and the $7 million picture grossed $45 million. Pee Wee's Playhouse was bought by CBS in 1986 and became a wildly popular Saturday Morning Children's programme.
Reubens had complete creative control and only appeared in public in Pee Wee costume, including interviews with the press.
In 1991 Ruebens was caught exposing himself in a police raid on an adult movie cinema.
The kids, parents and TV stations went mad and the Pee Wee bubble was burst in the wake of this scandal, although he received 15,000 supportive letters during his arrest.
A year later he made a cameo appearance as the father of Danny De Vito's The Penguin in Batman Returns.
Paul's film career has since taken off.
