The cause of death of Transformers star Peter Cullen was revealed a week after his death at the age of 85

The late actor Peter Cullen, who played Optimus Prime in the Transformers franchise, died last week at the age of 85 due to cardiac arrest.

Cullen, who died on August 26 at his home in Toluca Lake, California, died of cardiac arrest related to respiratory arrest. TMZ reported after viewing the death certificate of the late voice actor.

Data indicated that a malignant neoplasm of the lower lobe of the lungs was listed as an underlying cause for Cullen’s death, the newspaper reported, noting that his funeral is scheduled for September 9 in Forest Lawn.

Cullen played the alien robot in the classic ’80s animated series, as well as in the series of popular live-action films directed by Michael Bay and starring Shia LaBeouf.

Fans of retro children’s television may also recognize him as the voice of Eeyore in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which ran from 1988 to 1991.

The Daily Mail has contacted Cullen’s rep for further comment on the story.

Cullen’s rep previously confirmed to The Daily Mail in a statement that Cullen died “peacefully” at his home in the Los Angeles area while “surrounded by his loving family — and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans around the world.”

“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 the voice of Optimus Prime.

Although he initially dreamed of becoming a serious actor and studied Shakespeare as part of the first graduating class of the National Theater School of Canada, “he quickly came to the conclusion that I really wasn’t cut out to be the artsy guy,” he said.

‘I was having too much fun. I had gone through the experiences of elementary school and high school of being the clown,” he said in an interview The young people.

Cullen worked in Montreal in local films and TV and began working in nightclub revues, where he honed his talent for assuming a variety of accents and characters.

With his young wife and child in tow, he headed to Hollywood for a TV show in the style of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, which flopped, leaving him struggling to pick up the pieces and eventually land 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 should do is make your voice heard. You could make a lot of money with those votes.’

After doing a series of “extra voice” jobs on shows like Scooby-Doo & Scrappy-Doo and Alvin and the Chipmunks, he got his big break in 1984.

That year, he had his “cattle call” audition for the role of Optimus Prime, the head of the heroic machines known as Autobots, in the show The Transformers.

“On the advice of my brother Larry – who is a captain in the Marine Corps 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 really serious and said, ‘Well Peter, if you want to be a hero, be a real hero. Don’t be one of those fake Hollywood-sounding types who think they’re tough and they’re not.’

Larry’s advice to his younger brother was, “Be compassionate, be strong enough to be gentle and have some 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 came to the fore as he began playing Optimus Prime.

The show became a beloved children’s classic during its run from 1984 to 1987, producing what became a multi-billion dollar franchise over the decades.

Cullen’s inimitable contribution was a mainstay, including in the 1986 animated film The Transformers: The Movie, Orson Welles’ swan song.

In 1988, he earned a job on The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh as the staunchly brooding donkey Eeyore, a role he continued in such projects as 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 it was a “relief” to step into the gentle world of AA Milne after his previous action-packed shows and films, speaking on stage of TF Con.

In 2007, his voice reached a large global audience with the release of the first of the live-action Transformers films, directed by Michael Bay.

Featuring an all-star cast including Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight and Anthony Anderson, the film emerged as one of the highest-grossing films of the year and spawned a flurry of sequels.

The first five films were all directed by Bay and two of them, Dark of the Moon in 2011 and Age of Extinction in 2014, made over $1 billion each.

Cullen stayed with the franchise after Bay left and last voiced Optimus Prime in the 2023 release Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

For the following year’s film 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 humbling at the same time,” via IGN.

“There is such great talent behind the scenes, but also from the artistry to the conception, the writing, the directing and the acting,” he noted.

‘For me it is a great honor to be part of that. It will always be a topic of conversation in my life, and fortunately so, because it gives such a positive feeling to be able to talk about it. It’s one of the highlights of my life.’