26 Facts About Reg Varney

Reginald Alfred Varney was an English actor, entertainer and comedian.

Reg Varney is best remembered for having played the lead role of bus driver Stan Butler in the LWT sitcom On the Buses and its three spin-off feature films.

Reg Varney appeared in further sitcoms including Beggar My Neighbour and On the Buses stardom facilitated overseas cabaret tours.

Reg Varney's father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in 27 Addington Road, Canning Town.

Reg 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.

Reg Varney took piano lessons as a child and was good enough to find employment as a part-time piano player.

Reg Varney's first paid engagement was at Plumstead Radical Club in Woolwich, for which he was paid eight shillings and sixpence.

Reg Varney played in working men's clubs, pubs and ABC cinemas with his friend George Shears and later sang with big bands of the time.

Reg Varney became a solo pianist at the Windmill Theatre in May 1938.

Reg Varney then became an all-round entertainer, working his way around the music halls.

Reg Varney was aware that he was the only performer without West End acting experience and worked hard to make up for it.

Reg Varney featured in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery with Frankie Howerd, Dora Bryan and George Cole.

Reg Varney was living in Enfield at the time and for publicity purposes he was photographed making the first withdrawal from the machine on Tuesday 27 June 1967.

Reg Varney took considerable lengths to prepare for the role, even attempting to gain a public service vehicle licence so that he could be filmed driving on the open road.

However, Reg Varney was not insured so LWT had to employ professional drivers for these scenes.

Reg Varney was 52 when the first series was recorded, although his character Stan, who lived with his mother and often tried to attract young women, was implied to be aged around 35.

Reg Varney was only 11 years younger than Doris Hare, the main actress who played Stan's mother, and 20 years older than Anna Karen who played his sister.

Reg Varney left the series midway through its last season, hoping to move on to films and other projects.

However neither series replicated his success with On the Buses, and after Down the Gate was dropped after 12 episodes, Reg Varney did not star in another television series.

LWT revived The Rag Trade in 1977 but Reg Varney did not reprise his role.

Reg Varney later worked as an entertainer on cruise ships and toured Australia with his one-man show.

Reg Varney had a heart attack in 1965, and in 1981 he suffered a more serious one.

Reg Varney then contracted a severe viral infection, which for three years made working difficult for him.

Reg Varney moved to Devon in the late 1980s and lived alone after his wife died in East Devon in 2002.

Reg Varney died aged 92 in a nursing home in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, on 16 November 2008, following a chest infection.

In 2016,100 years after Reg Varney was born, an exhibition called "Before the Buses" was commissioned by his only child, his daughter Jeanne.