Paul Reubens

Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, on August 27, 1952, and grew up in a Jewish family in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy (née 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. Reubens's two younger siblings are Luke (born 1958), who is a dog trainer, and Abby (born 1953), who is an attorney and a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. Reubens spent much of his childhood in Oneonta, New York. As a child, he frequented the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, whose winter headquarters were in Sarasota. The circus atmosphere sparked Reubens's interest in entertainment and influenced his later work. He also loved to watch reruns of I Love Lucy, which made him want to make people laugh. At age five, Reubens asked his father to build him a stage where he and his siblings would act out plays. Reubens attended Sarasota High School, where he was named president of the National Thespian Society. He was accepted into Northwestern University's summer program for gifted high-school students, joined the local Asolo Theater, Players of Sarasota Theater, and appeared in several plays. After high school graduation, he attended Plymouth State University for one semester, before attending Boston University, after which he began auditioning for acting schools. He was turned down by several schools, including the Juilliard School and twice by Carnegie Mellon University, before being accepted to the California Institute of the Arts. Reubens moved to California, where he worked in restaurant kitchens and as a Fuller Brush salesman.