Peter Cullen, the veteran voice actor best known to generations of fans as Optimus Prime in the Transformers franchise, died at 85 after suffering cardiac arrest.
A death certificate also listed respiratory arrest as a contributing factor, according to TMZ . The document named a malignant neoplasm in the lower lobe of the lungs as an underlying cause of death.
Cullen brought the heroic alien robot to life in the original 1980s Transformers animated series and later returned to the role for the blockbuster live-action films directed by Michael Bay and starring Shia LaBeouf.
Beyond Transformers, he was also widely recognized as the voice of Eeyore on The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the animated series that aired from 1988 to 1991.
Our News Outlet has contacted Cullen’s representative seeking additional comment.
Peter Cullen, who voiced Optimus Prime in the Transformers franchise, died at 85 from cardiac arrest. He is pictured above in Los Angeles in 2003
Cullen portrayed the beloved alien robot in the classic 1980s animated series and in the hit live-action films directed by Michael Bay
Cullen’s representative previously confirmed to Our News Outlet in a statement that the actor died ‘peacefully’ at his home in the Los Angeles area, ‘surrounded by his loving family – and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans worldwide.’
‘His family asks 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 statement continued.
Peter Claver Cullen was born in Montreal in 1941 and grew up with three siblings, one of whom, his brother Larry, became the basis for Optimus Prime’s voice.
Although he initially nurtured dreams of being a serious actor, studying Shakespeare as part of the first graduating class of the National Theatre School of Canada, he ‘soon came to the conclusion that I really wasn’t cut out to be the artsy guy,’ he said.
‘I had too much fun. I had followed the experience of grade school and high school by being the clown,’ he shared in an interview with The Young Folks.
Cullen jobbed around in Montreal on local film and TV and began working nightclub revues, where he honed his talent for assuming a variety of accents and characters.
With his young wife and child in tow, he struck out to Hollywood for a TV show in the style of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In that flopped, leaving him scrambling to pick up the pieces and eventually landing an announcing gig on The Sonny & Cher Show.
It was his friend Jonathan Winters, the iconic comedian and star of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, who advised him: ‘You know, Peter, what you ought to do is, you ought to do your voices. Those voices, you could make a lot of bread.’
After working a string of ‘additional voices’ jobs on such shows as Scooby-Doo & Scrappy-Doo and Alvin and the Chipmunks, he achieved his big break in 1984.
After working a string of ‘additional voices’ jobs on such shows as Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo and Alvin and the Chipmunks, he achieved his big break in 1984 on The Transformers
Cullen’s inimitable contribution was a mainstay, including in the 1986 animated feature The Transformers: The Movie, the swan song of Orson Welles
The first five live-action Transformers films were all helmed by Michael Bay and two of them, Dark of the Moon in 2011 (pictured) and Age of Extinction in 2014, grossed over $1 billion
That year, he aced his ‘cattle call’ audition for the role of Optimus Prime, the chief of the heroic machines known as Autobots, on the show The Transformers.
With an all-star cast featuring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, the original 2007 picture emerged as one of the highest-grossing of that year and resulted in a cavalcade of sequels
‘On the advice of my brother Larry – who is a Marine Corps captain and fought in Vietnam and when he came back he had a very different outlook on life – one day when he asked where I was going I said: “I’m going to audition for a truck,” and he laughed,’ Cullen recalled decades later.
‘And I said: “No, he’s a hero truck,” and then he got very serious and he said: “Well Peter, if you’re going to be a hero, be a real hero. Don’t be one of those phony Hollywood sounding types that think they’re tough and they’re not.”‘
Larry’s guidance to his younger brother was: ‘Be compassionate, be strong enough to be gentle, and have a little dignity. But be strong.’
When Cullen arrived at the audition, his brother’s voice was still ringing in his ears, and it was Larry’s intonation that emerged when he began playing Optimus Prime.
The show became a beloved children’s classic during its run from 1984 through 1987, producing what over the decades grew into a multi-billion-dollar franchise.
Cullen’s inimitable contribution was a mainstay, including in the 1986 animated feature The Transformers: The Movie, the swan song of Orson Welles.
In 1988 he earned a job on The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh as the unshakably morose donkey Eeyore, a part he continued to play in projects like The Tigger Movie, A Very Merry Pooh Year, Piglet’s Big Movie, My Friends Tigger & Pooh, The Book of Pooh and House of Mouse.
He joked that stepping into the gentle world created by AA Milne was a ‘relief’ after his previous action-packed shows and films, speaking onstage at TF Con.
Fans of retro children’s television may also recognize him as the voice of Eeyore on The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which ran from 1988 to 1991
In 2007, his voice reached a massive global audience with the release of the first of the live-action Transformers movies directed by Michael Bay.
With an all-star cast featuring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight and Anthony Anderson, the picture emerged as one of the highest-grossing of the year and resulted in a cavalcade of sequels.
The first five films were all helmed by Bay and two of them, Dark of the Moon in 2011 and Age of Extinction in 2014, earned over $1 billion apiece.
Cullen remained with the franchise after Bay left, voicing Optimus Prime most recently in the 2023 release Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
For the following year’s picture Transformers One, which was conceived as an origin story, he was replaced by the younger-sounding Chris Hemsworth.
When asked about his own Transformers films crossing the billion-dollar mark, Cullen said: ‘It’s a staggering thought, and it’s humbling at the same time,’ via IGN.
‘There is such great talent behind the scenes as well as from the artistry to the conception to the writing to the directing to the acting,’ he observed.
‘For me, I take great pride in being a part of it. It will never cease to be an area of conversation in my life, and thankfully so, because it is such a positive feeling to be able to talk about it. It’s one of the highlights of my life.’
