Peter Cullen, voice of Optimus Prime and Eeyore, dies at 85

Peter Cullen, a prolific voice actor who enlivened scores of television series, specials and films, including Optimus Prime in the syndicated 1984 series Transformers and Eeyore in the Winnie the Pooh cartoon franchise, has died. He was 85.His agent, Kevin Motley, said Cullen died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles.“His family asks that you honour his remarkable legacy by serving your communities and leading others with compassion, integrity, and loyalty and always remember ‘be strong enough to be gentle’,” a family statement said.Cullen’s career spanned from being an announcer at the groundbreaking late-1960s comedy and variety series The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and joining comedy sketches for Sonny & Cher to voice acting in The Smurfs and multiple G.I. Joe iterations. But he struck a nerve as Optimus Prime.While the original cartoon ran just a few years, it left an indelible mark on pop culture, with a toy line, spin-off cartoon series and comics produced over the next two decades. That culminated in the launch of a multibillion-dollar, live-action film franchise in 2007 by Michael Bay.Peter Cullen accepts a Lifetime Achievement Award onstage during the 2nd Annual Children and Family Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in December 2023. Photo: TNSBefore his audition, Cullen knew only that he would be reading for the part of a truck, though giving voice to a vehicle did not seem that crazy. “You’re always auditioning for something in animation that’s a little off of the norm,” Cullen said in 2019.When Cullen read about the heroic Autobot leader that turned into a red cabover semi-trailer, he thought about his older brother, who had served as a US Marine in the Vietnam war.“He was my hero, and he certainly was the mainstay behind the character,” Cullen said. “I just did an impression of Larry, and he’s still alive in my mind today because every time I do Prime, there’s my brother Larry.”Cullen’s authoritative baritone as Optimus Prime also appeared in 2009’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen through Dark of the Moon, Age of Extinction, The Last Knight, Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts in 2023.His thoughtful, almost operatic lines would be quoted for decades by children and adults alike: “I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars: We are here. We are waiting,” he said in the first film.In another, he intoned: “Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing.”Other highlights from Cullen’s prolific career include voicing Eeyore across various Winnie-the-Pooh projects, including Disney’s The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh television series that aired from 1988-91, as well as voicing the villainous KARR opposite KITT in the 1980s NBC series Knight Rider, and lending his pipes to King Kong in the Jeff Bridges-led King Kong remake in 1976.A cosplayer shows of an Optimus Prime outfit at the Asia Games Show in Hong Kong in December 2003. Photo: Jonathan Wong“Optimus is my favourite character because it’s been so well received and it’s had such an effect on so many people,” Cullen told The New York Times in 2008.“Because of that, I hold it closer than any other character I’ve done – outside of maybe Eeyore, who’s had a considerable effect on younger children too.”Further ReadingOne of Cullen’s strangest jobs had no words at all: He provided the clicking sounds for the main alien creature in Predator, which he said he based on the sounds of a dying horseshoe crab.Cullen received a lifetime achievement award at the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards in 2023 and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for voicing Optimus Prime in 2011.Cullen would attend conventions around the country to meet with fans from multiple generations, often getting teary. He said parents sometimes got more excited than their children meeting him.“I expect that I will run into a father with his son, and the father will more than likely get choked up,” Cullen said before MegaCon Orlando in 2019. “And then I get choked up, and then the kid is saying ‘What are these two grown men getting choked up about?’ ”Cullen is survived by his four children, Angus, Claire, Pilar and Clay.