University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, August 24, 1988
7
Pee-wee or Paul? A reporter's nightmare
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Entertainment writers are always informed that Pee Wee Herman is a Pee Wee Herman, the film and television star, not as Paul Reubens.
How do you deal with that? Would you interview Lacaille Balli as Lucy Hircano, Sean Connery as James Bond, or the other way around, in sneaks and baby lilies.
Such questions go through a reporter's mind as he awaits the arrival of the star on a hone, empty Paramount set on fire. "If the far end, a tiny figure in the too-tight skin, hair plucked down, lips pursed. But as he sits down to talk, he is — sligh — neither Peee-wow nor rather, another, he's someone in the middle.
He has come to talk about "Big Top Pee-wee," the Paramount Pictures release he hoped would repeat the success of the 1955 "Peee-Wee Big Adventure," returns so far have been respectable but not overheating. But he also talked about other matters, including Rebens. "Why a circus movie?"
"I grew up in Sarasota, Florida, which is the old winter headquarters of the Ringling show," he explains. "I knew a lot of circus people. My school had a circus that included children of the performers."
"I always wanted to be an aerialist. But they told me I was too scrappy to be a catcher. I thought might be a claw or acrobat, and I learned to sight the tightrope (which he does in the film). But I got in show mode. I never saw it, and always thought if I didn't get successful, I'll give up and join the circus."
Born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, N.Y., in 1923, he grew up in Sasarota where his parents run a lamp store. He taught at the University putting on shows for the neighbor kids, later graduating to summer stock. After high school he spent a year as an assistant teacher then turned down by the Julliff School and Carnegie-Mellon University. So he enrolled at the Disneyland Resort Institute of the Arts in Valencia.
"When I first came out (to Hollywood), I thought people would discover the movie star, and they figured out a way to keep you a movie star," he reflected. "I had an unrealistic view of what I was going to do when I realized that I wasn't going to be one of those people who were decided I better discover myself."
When and where was Pee-wee born?
"Difficult question," he says cautiously. "I was part of a comedy group here in Los Angeles, and we
had our own theater."
Let the record show that the theater was The Groundlings, where Reubens appeared at night while preparing pizzas and selling Füller brushes by day. In 1979, he began developing the character of a would-be comedian who is hopelessly imitative and insensitive from a one-inch harmonica, Herman from an obnoxious childhood acquaintance.
Pee-wee Herman became a one-hour show he performed for a year at the Rozy theater on the Sunset Strip, then taped for HBO. "Late Night With David Lefterman" brought him to New York and Madison NV specials and appearances on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."
"Pee-wee's Big Adventure"
prove that the comedian had wide appeal. He was one of the few who wasn't surprised by the film's success.
"I was confident. I felt like the script was good, and the director (Tim Burton) made 'beetlejuice' and the team were good. I had a nice thing about it. It was more relieved that it was a success, that my feelings were right."
"Pee-ee's Playhouse" began appearing on CBCS Saturday morning in the spring of 1867 and has been a staple of theater for over a century and entertainment. Who did he
enter children's programming?
"I guess my real motivation is 'I guess begging me to do it. I keep saying don't forget it.' They said they, please do it. So I decide to give them a break and do one last time."
"Really, it just seemed like a fun thing to do. At first we discussed an animated cartoon, which I didn't want to do. Then I told them about a sort of salute to children's shows that was more oriented for adults. It started out as a midnight show that I liked and then a salute. So I suggested making it a live-action show like the ones I grew up on. They said OK."
Reubens laps into Herman when he discusses one of his co-stars in "Big Top Pee-wee," a talking pig.
"We had a nation-wide talent search for the pigt, and when you do the job, we will be called talent," he said. "I will have to wait for the critics to tell me whether he stole records from me. I am a giving man," he said. So we meet even somewhere.
"Since I wrote the film, I have the better letter, funner lines. I also try to breathe down the director's voice and I am very proud that we has getting too many laughs, then -- nip, snap, nibble is funner in a manic movien than Pee-ve Herman."
He giggles.
The Associated Press
Bakker home current decor not the taste of new owner
"It's just a house and it happens to be a little famous." Robert Rubino said of the 10,266-square-foot house.
TEGA CAY, M. The ma-
Tega Cay, M. The ma-
former PTL television evangelist
Binker is remodeling the
$805,000 house and hopes its moti-
rity is preserved.
green carpet that covers most of the house will be removed, and a 19-by-22-foot closet will be changed into a bedroom.
The four-bedroom, five-fathom home has a 36-foot-long swimming pool, a boat dock, a gym, an exercise room and a music room.
Little evidence of the Bakkers' taste will be left once the redecoration is complete. Rubino said.
"I looked at the house and it was just what I wanted," he said.
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A lot of curious people still stroll down his driveway to look at the house that once belonged to Bakker, who was forced from the ministry in a sex and money scandal.
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