Peter Cullen, the Canadian voice actor who voiced Optimus Prime in the original 1980s Transformers animated series, later reprised the role in the film and TV franchises, voiced Eeyore in the Winnie the Pooh franchise and was the announcer for the Smothers Brothers TV show, among scores of others, has died. He was 85.
His agent Kevin Motley told Deadline that Cullen died Wednesday in Los Angeles but did not provide a cause of death.
“Peter Cullen passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family – and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans worldwide,” Motley said in a statement. “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.’”
Cullen racked up more than 200 credits during a career that spanned more than 60 years. Along with his Transformers and Winnie the Pooh work, Cullen lent his voice to the toon series The Smurfs, DuckTales, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Ghostbusters, Voltron: Defender of the Universe, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Donkey Kong, Heathcliff & the Cadillac Cats, Dragon’s Lair, The Addams Family, Dungeons & Dragons, Gummi Bears, Rainbow Brite, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, BraveStarr, The Savage Dragon, Widget, the World Watcher, the early-’80s Spider-Man, multiple G.I. Joe iterations and dozens more.
Born on July 28, 1941, in Montreal, Cullen began his career in Canadian radio and got his big break when he was tapped as an announcer for the groundbreaking late-1960s comedy/variety series The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Mixing humor and music with politics and the counterculture, the show was a hit with fans but not networks censors.
From there, Cullen would work consistently for the next five-plus decades. He was a regular on the hit CBS variety series The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour from its 1971 launch to 1974, following with stints on variety shows fronted by Wolfman Jack and the Hudson Brothers during the genre’s heyday.
By the late 1970s, Cullen had pivoted mainly to voicing animation projects. His first brush with signature character Optimus Prime, the heroic leader of the shape-shifting Autobots, was in the syndicated 1984 series Transformers. He played the role based on the Hasbro toy line for the show’s entire four-season run that ended in 1987.
Although he moved on to voice characters in scores of others TV series, specials and movies, Cullen hardly was done with Prime. Two decades later, Michael Bay resurrected the franchise with Transformers, the big-budget 2007 film and brought Cullen back as the voice of its main nonhuman character. The Paramount Pictures movie was an international smash, leading to a multi-film gold mine that is among the highest-grossing franchises in Hollywood history.
And Cullen’s Optimus Prime would be there for all of it, from the 2009 first sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen through Dark of the Moon (2011), Age of Extinction (2014), The Last Knight (2017), spinoff Bumblebee (2018) and Rise of the Beasts (2023). Two of the movies — Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction — grossed more than $1.1 billion worldwide and remain among the 50 top-grossing pics in cinema history.
Along the way, Cullen would voice Prime in numerous Transformers TV series, video games (including 2023’s Fortnite: Chapter 4), short films and even on a 2024 episode of Fox’s The Masked Singer. Watch — and, importantly, listen to Cullen’s Optimus Prime lend advice to contestants on the singing competition during Season 11 here:
Information on survivors or a memorial service was not immediately available.