Reg Varney

Reg Varney
Varney using the first ATM in 1967
Born	Reginald Alfred Varney (1916-07-11)11 July 1916 Canning Town, Essex, England
Died	16 November 2008(2008-11-16) (aged 92) Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England
Cause of death	Chest Infection
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1952–1995
Television	On the Buses
Spouse(s)	Lilian Varney (m. 1939–2002) (her death); 1 daughter

Reginald Alfred "Reg" Varney (11 July 1916 – 16 November 2008) was an English actor, notable for his role as Stan Butler in the 1969-73 TV sitcom On the Buses.

Early life

Varney was born in Canning Town, then part of Essex but 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. Varney was aware that he was the only performer without West End acting experience and worked hard to make up for it. 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 thirty-minute episodes), and a short special was shown as part of Christmas Night with the Stars on 25 December 1967. In 1966 Varney 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, written by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe, who had also written The Rag Trade. He played the lead role of bus driver Stan Butler, a long-suffering but loyal man who never has much luck where romance is concerned. Varney went to considerable lengths to research the role, even taking bus-driving lessons and a test to gain a heavy goods vehicle licence so that he could be filmed driving a bus on the open road. There were also three spin-off films made, On the Buses (1971), Mutiny on the Buses (1972), and Holiday on the Buses (1973). Varney was 52 when the first series was filmed, although his character, who lived with his mother and was often trying to attract young women, was supposed to be 35. Varney was only eleven years younger than Doris Hare, the second actress to play his mother in the series. Co-star Stephen Lewis was actually twenty years younger than Varney, but was made to look older as Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake. Varney was 56 when he left On the Buses, halfway through the final series.

Despite receiving generally bad reviews from critics, the show was hugely popular in the UK 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, for which he received acclaim as a serious actor, Varney played a drag artist-cum-compère at a caravan holiday site. Down the Gate, in which he played a Billingsgate fish porter, followed. The series was soon cancelled, and Varney never did another sitcom. 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 15 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 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.

The British public never fully forgave him for leaving On the Buses. His popularity waned, and his television and film career collapsed. He ended up working as an entertainer on cruise ships and touring Australia with his one-man show. He told an interviewer, "Whatever I did after On The Buses, nobody wanted to know about it. But I can't knock the programme because it brought me offers to do concert tours in Australia, New Zealand and Canada."

Retirement and death

Varney had a heart attack in 1965, and in 1981 he suffered a more serious one. He then contracted a severe viral infection, which for three years made working difficult for him. In 1989 he suffered a stroke, which left him with an uneven heartbeat. 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, following a chest infection. He was survived by his daughter Jeanne Varney.

Selected filmography

• Miss Robin Hood (1952)
• Joey Boy (1965)
• The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery (1966)
• On the Buses (1971)
• The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (1972)
• Mutiny on the Buses (1972)
• Go for a Take (1972)
• Holiday on the Buses (1973)

Select television roles

Year	Title	Role
1961–1963	The Rag Trade	Reg
1966–1968	Beggar My Neighbour	Harry Butt
1969–1973	On the Buses	Stan Butler
1975–1976	Down the 'Gate	Reg Furnell

External links

• Reg Varney at the Internet Movie Database