Peter Cullen, the Canadian voice actor who starred as the heroic Optimus Prime in a convoy of Transformers films, TV shows and video games and as the gloomy Eeyore in dozens of Winnie the Pooh projects, has died. He was 85.
Cullen died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, his agent, Kevin Motley, told The Hollywood Reporter.
He “passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family — and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans worldwide,” his family said in a statement. They ask “that you honor his remarkable legacy by serving your communities and leading others with compassion, integrity and loyalty and always remember ‘be strong enough to be gentle’.”
The Montreal-born Cullen also voiced King Kong for the 1976 remake and the evil K.A.R.R. (short for Knight Automated Roving Robot) on Knight Rider series in 1982 and 2009, and he came up with the scary clicking sounds that emerged from the mouth of the monster in the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring Predator (1987).
Early in his career, he was a live-action performer and served as the announcer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.
In a 2014 NPR interview, Cullen noted that he initially approached playing Optimus Prime with puzzlement. “I auditioned like everybody else,” he said. “I was told it was a hero, and I was told it was a truck.”
The good-natured Cullen got the job and voiced the honorable leader of the Autobots for the first time on the 1984-87 syndicated series The Transformers, based on the Hasbro toy line and produced by Marvel in association with Toei Animation of Japan and then AKOM in South Korea.
Optimus’ death after a duel with the tyrannical Megatron in The Transformers: The Movie (1986) caused a huge and unexpected outcry, prompting producers to bring Cullen and the character back for the 1987 straight-to-video movie The Transformers: The Return of Optimus Prime.
When director Michael Bay resurrected the property for the big screen with DreamWorks’ Transformers (2007), starring Shia LaBeouf, it was a no-brainer to rehire Cullen after two decades away.
“I describe it as kind of slipping into an old pair of very comfortable shoes that you haven’t worn for a while,” he told IGN in 2007. “I just slipped right into them, and they felt as good as the last time I put them on.”
With Cullen as the Peterbilt 379 semi-trailer truck, the film grossed $709.7 million worldwide — the fifth-highest grossing movie of the year. He followed with the sequels Revenge of the Fallen (2009), which raked in $836.3 million, and Dark of the Moon (2011) and Age of Extinction (2014), which each raked in $1.1 billion.
Cullen also played Optimus in The Last Knight (2017), Bumblebee (2018) and Rise of the Beasts (2023). (Chris Hemsworth voiced the character in 2014’s Transformers One.)
Cullen began as the voice of Eeyore on the 1988-91 series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and he portrayed the droopy donkey in the featureWinnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year (2002) and on other shows and videos.
“I get an awful lot of reactions from, especially, young kids, when I go up and just say [in Eeyore’s voice], ‘Hello. Thanks for noticing me,’” Cullen said.
Peter Cullen voiced Optimus Prime in 2014’s ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction.’
Industrial Light & Magic/Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
One of four children, Peter Claver Cullen was born in Montreal on July 28, 1941. His parents, Henry, a longtime newsprint executive with the International Paper Sales Co., and Muriel, were Americans.
He spent time on a relative’s farm as a kid, and “I remember the very first summer, I could imitate the cows, the calves, the chickens, the different dogs they had,” he recalled.
He left the National Theatre School of Canada as a member of its first graduating class in 1963, studied acting under operatic coach Bernard Diamant, did Shakespeare for a summer in Stratford, Ontario, and was a member of the repertory company at The Crest Theatre in Toronto for a year.
He also worked as an announcer for the Montreal radio station CKGM and played an astronaut named Commander Bi Bi Latuque on the 1967 slapstick kids series The Buddies for the Montreal TV station CFCF. He then starred in Les Anglaises, a CBC radio comedy about a French Canadian man and his English Canadian wife (Joan Stuart) for the series Funny You Should Say That.
Cullen headed to Hollywood and landed on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967, and he took part in comedy sketches for the Sonny & Cher program and The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Comedy Show.
To play Optimus Prime, Cullen said he channeled the spirit of his older brother, Larry, a decorated U.S. Marine who served in Vietnam from 1965-68.
“When he came home, I could see a change. He was quieter and he was a man and a superhero to me,” he said in 2006. “I watched him and listened to him. I’d never had an opportunity to do a superhero, and when that came, [that voice] just came right out of me, and I sounded like Optimus.”
He also got to voice Autobots weapons specialist Ironhide, which he based on Chill Wills, an actor in classic Hollywood Westerns.
Cullen’s performance in the first season of the 2010-13 series Transformers: Prime earned him a Daytime Emmy nomination.
At the urging of his agent, Cullen auditioned for Predator even though he was coughing up blood after working long hours on another project, he recalled in 2018. Producers initially didn’t want to show him what the creature looked like, hoping to keep that a secret, but the actor insisted.
“If I can’t see the character, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I have to have something to relate to, to put myself inside of,” Cullen said of his voice-acting playbook.
“I saw this ugly, ugly face and these tentacles [moving around]. It reminded me of an upside-down horseshoe crab dying in the sun on a beach when I was a kid. Nasty. But from that was coming all these crackling sounds, bubbles that were coming out and bursting.”
Back on the animation front, Cullen also voiced the cheese-obsessed mouse Monterey Jack on Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers; Coran and King Alfor in the Lion Voltron series; Ramrod in the anime show Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs; Commander James Hawkins in the Vehicle Voltron series; Mario in Saturday Supercade cartoons; and Councillor 1 in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
He was involved with NASA and the Optimus Prime Spinoff Award, which is presented each year to youngsters studying space, science, technology and math.
Survivors include his children, Angus, Claire, Pilar and Clay, a stunt performer and coordinator.
“The phenomenon of Transformers itself is mind-shaking,” he said. “Being a part of it is not only historical, it’s a part of your life that says, ‘Gee, I’m glad.’ I did something in my life that stood out, and I’m really grateful for that. Humbled by it.”
