You remember the distinctive laugh, the gray, slender-fitting suit and the cherry red bowtie. But do you have any recollection of the man who broughtPee-wee Hermanto life, save for a fuzzy memory of a few incriminatory headlines? In "Pee-wee as Himself," Paul Reubens makes it clear that he didn't want the two-part docuseries arriving in its entirety on May 23 (HBO, 8 ET/PT and streaming on HBO Max) to be a "legacy movie." "I really want to set the record straight on a couple things, and that's pretty much it," says Reubens (born Paul Rubenfeld). But unbeknownst to director Matt Wolf and the public, Reubens had been privately battling cancer for years.He diedon July 30, 2023, at 70, while fighting acute myelogenous leukemia and metastatic lung cancer,according to reports. "I was completely unaware that he was sick," Wolf tells USA TODAY. "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 the process of making this film." Join our Watch Party!Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox Throughout 40 hours of interviews, Reubens, a perfectionist, and Wolf verbally tussle over control on the project. The entertainer opens up about his decision to allow his avatar Pee-wee, star of "Pee-wee's Playhouse," to swallow Reubens in a stop-at-no-costs search for stardom ignited at an early age. Reubens grew up performing plays on a stage his father built in the basement of their home in Sarasota, Florida, with early aspirations of becoming an actor. "I wanted to be the focus of everyone's attention," he says. Reubens also addresses topics more difficult for him to talk about, including his sexuality and trouble with the law. Reubens was arrested in 1991 and charged with indecent exposure after he was accused ofmasturbating at an adult movie theater. After a raid of his Los Angeles home in 2001,Reubens was charged with possessing child pornography. Wolf, a filmmaker interested in "unconventional visionaries who beg for reappraisal," investigates the incidents in search of the truth. In "Pee-wee as Himself," Reubens remembers he "fell in love instantly" at a party with a painter named Guy, who inspired some of Pee-wee's mannerisms. But Reubens says their relationship eclipsed his sense of self and ambitions, and that was a threat too great to bear. "When we split up, I just made a conscious decision and went, 'I'm not doing this again,' " Reubens says. "I not only wasn't going to be openly gay, but I wasn't going to be in a relationship. "My career would've absolutely suffered if I was openly gay, and so I went to great lengths for many, many years to keep it a secret." Wolf says Reubens wanted to come out in the docuseries, but "he didn't know how he was going to do it, and he was anxious about it." "He pulled me aside while we were on set and said, 'I don't know how to do this,' " says Wolf, who told him, "All you have to do is say 'I'm gay' (and) take it from there." Reubens didn't want his sexuality to define him, Wolf says. "He didn't want his work to be seen through a gay lens or to be perceived as a gay icon," Wolf says. "That just wasn't how he defined himself." 'We loved you right back':Bette Midler, Tim Burton, more stars remember Paul Reubens The film examines what happened in both of Reubens' arrests, and "it was important to really go there to clear his name," Wolf says. "The response that I've heard is that people really believe that what happened to Paul was unjust, and I feel that way based on having absorbed and looked at the facts very closely." Reubensdenied the masturbation accusationat the time and says in "Pee-wee as Himself," "I still feel the effects all the time." He pleaded no contest to move on. A decade later, authorities raided Reubens' home, where he kept an art collection of gay erotica. Reubens was charged with one count of misdemeanor possession of child pornography. A plea deal was made "that addressed this being material that was offensive somehow, but on an obscenity standard, not anything to do with child pornography," Reubens' attorney Blair Berk says in the docuseries. The charge was lessened to one count of possession of obscene material, andReubens pleaded guilty. Still, he was ordered to attend mandatory counseling and register as a sex offender for three years. Reubens died before he could sit for a final interview with Wolf. "In the last months of Paul's life, he was in a loving relationship," Reubens' assistant Allison Berry says. "He was surrounded by his closest friends. He had a lot of joy. I think he was embracing the fullness of his life in those last days and in awe of the life that he had lived." The day before he died, Reubens recorded an audio message for the docuseries. "The reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn't," Reubens says in part, seemingly putting in great effort to speak. "I wanted people to understand that occasionally where there is smoke, there isn't always fire. "I wanted somehow for people to understand that my whole career, everything I did and wrote, was based in love and my desire to entertain and bring glee and creativity to young people and to everyone." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Pee-wee Herman documentary examines Paul Reubens' controversial past