Actor and comedian Paul Reubens had myelogenous leukemia and metastatic lung cancer during the filming of the docuseries “Pee-wee as Himself,” but almost no one knew it at the time.

Reubens died at age 70 in July 2023 . Earlier that year, he spent more than 40 hours talking to “Pee-wee as Himself” director Matt Wolf without mentioning his diagnosis. The series documented Reubens’ life and career.

“I was completely unaware that he was sick,” Wolf told USA Today in May 2025. “I could tell something was up, but I had no sense of the gravity of it. So when he died, it was a complete shock to me, and I went to work immediately to figure out how to make meaning out of these extraordinary circumstances and to better understand the relationship that I had with him and what unfolded through

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