American comedian better known as Pee-Wee Herman, playing a winsome, goofy young man in a tight suit and lipstick, googly eyes and a smirk, popular with kids and those who appreciate broad physical comedy. He made such films as Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Big Top Pee-Wee, and had an Emmy award-winning Saturday morning kid’s show, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.
On 26 July 1991, it appeared that Reubens had sunk his own career when he was arrested for exposure and public masturbation in a Sarasota, Florida porno theater. Overnight he became a punch-line in sniggering jokes. It was not his first brush with such charges. In 1983 he had been picked up for loitering near another porno theater, charges that were later dropped. This time, Reubens was sentenced to 75 hours community service and a $50 fine, but the career damage seemed inestimable.
However, Reubens is not the first in Hollywood star to survive a little scandal. In the doldrums of summer TV, 2001, he emerged as a delightfully funny host of a game-show called “You Don’t Know Jack” that lasted a few showings. He has also received rave reviews for his role as a gay, coke-dealing hairdresser in the drug drama, Blow.
He pleaded not guilty on 19 January 2002 to a not very funny misdemeanor charge of possessing child porno, a charge that stemmed from a search of his Los Angeles home in November 2001. In March 2004, child pornography charges were dropped in exchange for Reubens’ guilty plea to a lesser charge. On 19 March that year, he was sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to the misdemeanor obscenity charge. Reubens later stated that he was a collector of erotica, including films, muscle magazines and a sizable collection of mostly homosexual vintage erotica, such as photographic studies of teen nudes. Reubens described the nudes as people “one hundred percent not” performing sexual acts.
Since 2006, Reubens has been making cameos and guest appearances in numerous projects, such as Reno 911!, 30 Rock, Dirt, Pushing Daisies, and The Blacklist.
In 2010, he starred on Broadway in The Pee-wee Herman Show. In 2016, Reubens helped write and stared in the Netflix original film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, reprising his role as Pee-wee Herman.
Link to Wikipedia biography