Reg Varney:A Tribute...

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Reginald Alfred Varney (born 11 July 1916, Canning Town, then in Essex but now part of East London) is an English TV and film actor, most notable for his role as Stan Butler in the 1970s British sitcom, On the Buses.

Reg Varney's father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in Addington Road, Canning Town. He was educated at 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 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 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. Also around this time he did 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 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 25 December 1967. In 1966 he starred in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery as Gilbert.

On June 27, 1967, the world's first voucher based cash dispensing machine was installed at a branch of Barclays Bank on Church Street in Enfield, Middlesex. For publicity purposes, Varney made the first withdrawal.

His 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 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 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 plays a drag artist-cum-comp?re at a caravan holiday site. Down The Gate where he played a Billingsgate Fish Porter followed, but was not a great success. He was also in the remake of the film The Plank.

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 onto the stage and again Varney went over to Australia to play Stan.

During the 1990s, Varney was forced to retire because of health problems....

God Bless Reg...a trouper until the end of his career....

[Tony.London Suburbs]

I know it seems ridiculously dated now but I liked the innocent charm of "On The Buses"...

"Oi! Butler! Get that bleedin' bus out!"....

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Probably not soFisticated enuff for many here lmao

[????]

He's from Canning Town, so was probably a good West Ham boy...

Can't we have a picture of Olive for the boy's thread?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

???? Wrote:

He's from Canning Town, so was probably a good West Ham boy...Can't we have a picture of Olive for the boy's thread?

Careful what you wish for-it might actually come true:-S

Its there now!

I'm gonna miss old Reg.

[ON THE BUSES]

A nice tribute and if any readers of the East Dulwish forum are interested ON THE BUSES fanclub is still going strong.

It's free to join so why not visit the web site

ON THE BUSES web site

And enjoy a trip down Memory Lane

DING DING

Steve

[flapjackdavey]

Reg Varney was probably a lovely man I'm sure .. but On The Buses was tripe ... IMHO

well apart from Blakey

[????]

"I'll get you Butler!"

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Reg will be sadly missed for sure Guys:-S

[Tony.London Suburbs]

flapjackdavey Wrote:

well apart from Blakey

Blakey is still performing in Last Of The Summer Wine(in its 27th year) but also worthy of a Tribute at some stage.

[????]

to be honest I was always more of a "Dad's Army" man

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Tell them nothing ????(!)

[????]

Stupid boy

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Actually I wasn't a real fan of LOTSW or DA or even really On The Buses:))

Now Alan Partridge,The Office(Series 1) Fawlty Towers Black Adder Goes Forth..:)-D

[EDOldie]

Comedy actor Reg Varney, best known for playing driver Stan Butler in ITV sitcom On The Buses, has died aged 92.

He died following a short illness in a nursing home in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, where he had recently been admitted with a chest infection.

His daughter Jeanne Marley, 59, said her father had died "peacefully" on Sunday afternoon.

[????]

TLS= the Grim Reaper FACT

[bigbadwolf]

Reg was the first person in the U.K to use a cashpoint. On the buses was a load of bollocks.

[bigbadwolf]

Oops, that's been said already.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Reg Varney, who died yesterday aged 92, was an actor, comedian and singer who became a household name as the central figure in the popular situation comedy On the Buses, which began in 1969 and ran for seven series.

Varney managed to capture the quintessential spirit of a happy-go-lucky London bus driver in the character of Stan Butler, a cheeky barrel of laughs with an eye for the girls. And it is a testament to his skills as an actor that he managed to play so convincingly the role of an immature 35-year-old when he was in his mid-fifties.

Always conscious of his lack of formal training as an actor, Varney was an earnest man when on set. He took his work seriously, constantly learning and rehearsing his lines ? as well as those of the other cast members, to give himself a complete understanding of the situation in which a comedy episode was set.

Although to a large extent he played himself in On the Buses, 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.

He would truly relax only at the end of a series, when he would throw a "Cockney party night" for the programme's cast and crew at his home in Enfield, north London. It was his little joke to get his co-stars eating whelks, cockles and jellied eels while he drank whisky or performed old East End songs at the piano...........

Another old Cockney leaves us which is sad.

The last paragraph reminds me of a Party 3 years ago when we said goodbye to my Auntie also aged 92 being the last of My Dads 7 Brothers and Sisters to survive at Peckham Rye Lane.

Reg Varney R.I.P.