Reg Varney

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reginald Alfred Varney, born Canning Town, Essex, (now Greater London), on 11 July 1916, is an English TV and film actor who starred in On the Buses, a popular British 1970s sitcom.

His father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children. He was educated at 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's Park Hotel. He took piano lessons as a child and was sufficiently proficient to get work 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. 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 showbiz 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 which included a tour of the Far East. After being demobbed, he starred on stage in the late 1940s in a comic revue entitled "Gaytime". His stooge in the act was none other than Benny Hill. He then went on to become an all round entertainer, working his way around the music halls.

In 1961, he got the role as a foreman in a TV series called The Rag Trade. After that followed another comedy role in Beggar My Neighbour; this also starred Pat Coombs, June Whitfield, and Peter Jones. Pat Coombs was to play Reg Varney's wife and 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 25th December 1967.

His greatest success was in the sitcom called On The Buses which was penned by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, who had also written The Rag Trade. Reg played the lead character of Stan Butler, a long suffering but loyal man who never gets his way with the ladies.

The show was a great success and Reg 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 plays a drag artist-cum-compere at a caravan holiday site. Down The Gate where he played a Billingsgate Fish Porter followed, but was not a great success.

He also made had 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 onto the stage and again Varney went over to Australia to play Stan.

During 1990s, Varney was forced to retire due to health problems and now he spends his time between his residence in a small village near Dartmouth and a villa in Malta.