Paul Reubens (ne Rubenfeld; born August 27, 1952) is an American actor, writer, film producer, game show host, and comedian, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman. Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe The Groundlings in the 1970s and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. In 1982, Reubens put up a show about a character he had been developing for years.

In November 2002, while filming David LaChapelle's video for Elton John's "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore", Reubens learned that police were at his home with a search warrant, acting on a tip from a witness in the pornography case against actor Jeffrey Jones, finding among over 70,000 items of kitsch memorabilia, two grainy videotapes and dozens of photographs that the city attorney's office characterized as a collection of child pornography. Kelly Bush, Reubens' personal representative at the time, said the description of the items was inaccurate and claimed the objects were "Rob Lowe's sex videotape, and a few 30- to 100-year-old kitsch collectible images." Reubens turned himself in to the Hollywood division of the LAPD and was charged with possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of 18 in sexual conduct. The district attorney looked at Reubens' collection and computer and found no grounds for bringing any felony charges against him, while the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo brought misdemeanor charges against Reubens on the last day allowed by the statute. Reubens was represented by Hollywood criminal defense lawyer Blair Berk. In December he pleaded not guilty through Berk, who also complained that the city attorney failed to turn over evidence to the defense, which City Attorney Richard Katz countered that prosecutors were not required to do until after arraignment, after which they did; neither side disclosed the contents. In March 2004, child pornography charges were dropped in exchange for Reubens' guilty plea to a lesser charge. For the next three years, he was required to register his address with the sheriff's office and he could not be in the company of minors without the permission of a parent or legal guardian. 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 said that what the city attorney's office viewed as pornography, he considered to be innocent art and that what they described as people underage engaged in masturbation or oral copulation was, in fact, a judgmental point of view of the nudes that Reubens described as people "one hundred percent not" performing sexual acts. Being an avid collector, Reubens had often purchased bulk lots, and one of his vintage magazine dealers declared that "there's no way" he could have known the content of each page in the publications he bought and that he recalled Reubens asking for "physique magazines, vintage 1960s material, but not things featuring kids". He spent the next two years in Florida, caring for his terminally ill father, who died in February 2004 of cancer. CANNOTANSWER

Ask a question about this article.

Did he think of himself as a pedophile?