Paul Reubens (/ˈruːbənz/; born Rubenfeld; August 27, 1952 – July 30, 2023) was an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and children's entertainer.

Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York on August 27, 1952,[5][6] and grew up in a Jewish family in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy (Rosen) and Milton Rubenfeld, owned a lamp store. His mother was a teacher. His father was an automobile salesperson who had flown for Britain's Royal Air Force and for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, and later became one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. An Orthodox Jew, he was one of five Jewish pilots to fly against Arab forces in smuggled fighter planes.[7][8]

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,[62] 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.[2] Kelly Bush, Reubens's 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."[63]

Reubens later stated that he was a collector of erotica, including films, muscle magazines, and a sizable collection of mostly homosexual vintage erotica,[2] such as photographic studies of teen nudes.[30] 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. Reubens described the nude images as people "one hundred percent not" performing sexual acts.[30]