Paul Reubens, the comic actor whose childlike alter-ego Pee-wee Herman became a movie and television sensation in the 1980s, and whose career was briefly derailed by a sex scandal in the early 1990s, died on Sunday. He was 70.

His death was confirmed on Monday by his longtime representative Kelly Bush Novak, who said he had “privately fought cancer for years with his trademark tenacity and wit.” She did not say where he died.

A full obituary will follow.