Peter Cullen, Voice of Optimus Prime and Eeyore, Dies at 85
Peter Cullen, the Canadian voice actor whose baritone gave life to Optimus Prime in the Transformers franchise and Eeyore across dozens of Winnie the Pooh projects, has died at 85. His agent, Kevin Motley, told The Hollywood Reporter that Cullen died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. His family said in a statement that he "passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family" The Hollywood Reporter.
Born on July 28, 1941, in Montreal, Quebec, Cullen trained at the National Theatre School of Canada, graduating in its first class in 1963. He broke into television as an announcer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour from 1967 to 1969, and became a series regular on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour from 1971 to 1974.
Cullen first voiced Optimus Prime on the syndicated animated series The Transformers, which ran from 1984 to 1987 and was based on the Hasbro toy line. The voice drew on personal history: Cullen's brother Larry, a retired United States Marine Corps captain, told him that real heroes are gentle rather than loud and tough. That advice shaped a character whose calm authority became the franchise's moral centre.
Prime's death in the 1986 animated film The Transformers: The Movie provoked such a huge outcry that producers brought Cullen and the character back for the 1987 straight-to-video release The Transformers: The Return of Optimus Prime. The audience had spoken, and the studio listened.
Michael Bay rehired Cullen for the 2007 live-action Transformers film, which grossed $709.7 million worldwide. Cullen stayed with the series through Revenge of the Fallen ($836.3 million in 2009), Dark of the Moon ($1.1 billion in 2011), Age of Extinction ($1.1 billion in 2014), The Last Knight (2017), Bumblebee (2018) and Rise of the Beasts (2023). Chris Hemsworth took over the role for 2024's animated Transformers One — though at that film's CinemaCon presentation, Hemsworth paid tribute to Cullen as "the voice of Optimus Prime for four decades" Variety.
Cullen's range extended far beyond the Autobots. He voiced the gloomy donkey Eeyore beginning with The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988–91) and continued through Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year (2002). He was the voice of King Kong in the 1976 remake. He played the villainous K.A.R.R. on Knight Rider in 1982 and again in 2009. And he created the eerie clicking sounds made by the creature in Predator (1987) — a contribution credited by The Hollywood Reporter.
As recently as June 2026, ElevenLabs partnered with Hasbro's AI Studios to license Transformers characters, retaining Cullen's original recordings as the voice of Optimus Prime alongside Frank Welker's Megatron Variety. His voice, it seems, will keep commanding the screen.
Cullen is survived by his family. No further details were given.
