| Name | Reg Varney |
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| Caption | Varney using the first ATM in 1967 |
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| Birth name | Reginald Alfred Varney |
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| Birth date | July 11, 1916 |
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| Birth place | Canning Town, Essex, England |
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| Death date | November 18, 2008 |
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| Occupation | Actor |
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| Yearsactive | 1952–1995 |
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| Spouse | Lilian Varney (1939–2002) |
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Reginald Alfred "Reg" Varney (11 July 1916 – 16 Nov 2008) was an English actor, most notable for his role as Stan Butler in the 1970s TV sitcom On the Buses.
Early life
Varney was born in
Canning Town, which was then part of
Essex but is now part of
East London. His father worked in a rubber factory in
Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in Addington Road, Canning Town. Varney was educated at the nearby
Star Lane Primary School in
West Ham and after leaving school at 14, he worked as a messenger boy and a page boy at the
Regent Palace Hotel. He took piano lessons as a child and was good enough to find employment as a part-time piano player. His first paid engagement was at
Plumstead Radical Club in
Woolwich, for which he was paid eight
shillings and
sixpence (42½p). He also played in
working men's clubs, pubs and ABC cinemas, and later sang with big bands of the time. He and his mother decided that show business was the career for him, and he gave up his
day jobs.
During World War II, he joined the Royal Engineers, but continued performing as an army entertainer, touring the Far East for a time. After being demobbed, he starred on stage in the late 1940s in a comic revue entitled Gaytime. His partner in the double act was Benny Hill. He then went on to become an all-round entertainer, working his way around the music halls.
Career
In 1961, Varney was given the role of a foreman in the popular television
sitcom,
The Rag Trade, which made him a household name. Also around this time he starred in a show for BBC TV called
The Seven Faces of Reg Varney where he performed seven different characters in front of an audience at the
Shepherd's Bush Theatre in London. Varney rushed about at a frantic pace on stage as he changed clothes between characters. After that followed another comedy role in
Beggar My Neighbour; this also starred
Pat Coombs,
June Whitfield, and
Peter Jones. Pat Coombs played the wife of Varney's character and she would later appear in the
On the Buses movie. The series ran from March 1967 to March 1968 (24 episodes of 30 minute duration) and a short special was shown as part of
Christmas Night with the Stars on 25 December 1967. In 1966 he starred in
The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery as Gilbert.
On 27 June 1967, the world's first voucher based cash dispensing machine was installed at the Enfield Town branch of Barclays Bank. Varney lived in Enfield at the time and for publicity purposes he was photographed making the first withdrawal from the machine.
On The Buses
Varney's greatest success was in the sitcom
On the Buses which was written by
Ronald Chesney and
Ronald Wolfe, who had also written
The Rag Trade. Varney played the lead role of bus driver Stan Butler, a long-suffering but loyal man who never has much luck where romance is concerned. There were also three spin-off movies made,
On the Buses (1971),
Mutiny on the Buses (1972), and
Holiday on the Buses (1973). Varney was 53 when the series started, although his character, who lived at home and was often trying to attract women, seemed to be in his mid-thirties.
Stephen Lewis, who played Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake in the series, was actually 20 years younger than Varney, who, by the time
On the Buses ended, was 57.
The show was a great success and Varney started to take on more film roles. These included Go for a Take and The Best Pair of Legs in the Business. In the latter, Varney played a drag artist-cum-compère at a caravan holiday site. Down the Gate, in which he played a Billingsgate fish porter, followed, but was not a great success. He was also in the remake of the film The Plank.
In April to June 1969 Varney co-starred with Scottish entertainer Billy Raymond in 13 episodes of Australia's Channel O TV entertainment series "Rose and Crown" before returning to the UK for another "On The Buses" TV series.
He also made six hour-long spectaculars called The Other Reg Varney, and later his cabaret act toured Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In 1988, On the Buses went on to the stage and again Varney went to Australia to play Stan.
Retirement and death
During the 1990s, Varney was forced to retire because of health problems. He had a
heart attack in 1965 and in 1981 he suffered a more severe one. Subsequently he divided his time between his home in a small village near
Dartmouth and a villa in
Malta.
Varney moved to Devon in the late 1980s and lived alone after his wife, Lilian Emma Varney, died in East Devon in 2002, aged 92.
Varney died aged 92 in a nursing home in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, on 16 November 2008, after suffering a chest infection. He was survived by his daughter Jeanne Marley.
Selected filmography
Miss Robin Hood (1952)
Joey Boy (1965)
The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery (1966)
On the Buses (1971)
Mutiny on the Buses (1972)
Go for a Take (1972)
Holiday on the Buses (1973)
The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (1974)
Select television roles
References
External links
Category:English stage actors
Category:English television actors
Category:English film actors
Category:People from Canning Town
Category:Infectious disease deaths in England
Category:British Army personnel of World War II
Category:Royal Engineers soldiers
Category:1916 births
Category:2008 deaths
