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With his bow tie, short drainpipe pants and flattop hairdo, Pee-wee became enshrined in the popular imagination as a symbol of childlike whimsy.
Paul Reubens, the comic actor whose bow-tied, childlike alter-ego Pee-wee Herman became an unlikely if almost uncategorizable movie and television sensation in the 1980s, died on Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 70.
His death, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was confirmed on Monday by his longtime representative Kelly Bush Novak, who said he had “privately fought cancer for years with his trademark tenacity and wit.”
“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Mr. Reubens said in a statement released with the announcement of his death. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”