BORN 11th July 1916 - PASSED AWAY Sunday 16th November 2008
Reg as Stan Butler
Reg attended Star Lane Primary School in Newham
🎭 Reg Varney Biography
Reg Varney (Reginald Alfred Varney) was one of Britain's best-known comedy entertainers of the 1960s and 1970s. He is remembered above all as Stan Butler, the cheeky bus driver in On the Buses, but his career began decades earlier as a pianist and variety performer. He was also famously the first person to use a cashpoint/ATM in a public demonstration in 1967.
👶 Early life
📅 Born: 11 July 1916
📍 Canning Town, East London
👨👩👦 Family: One of five children
⚰️ Died: 16 November 2008, aged 92
Reg was born into a working-class East End family. His father, Sidney Thomas Varney, worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown. Reg attended Star Lane Primary School in West Ham.
🎒 He left school at just 14.
His first ordinary jobs included:
- 📬 Messenger boy
- 🏨 Page boy at the Regent Palace Hotel
But entertainment was already becoming his passion.
🎹 Discovering music
As a boy, Reg learned to play the piano.
He became good enough to earn money performing, and his first paid engagement was at the Plumstead Radical Club in Woolwich, where he earned 8 shillings and 6 pence.
🎹 He went on to perform in:
- 👷 Working men's clubs
- 🍺 Pubs
- 🎬 Cinemas
- 🎺 Big bands
- 🎭 Variety theatres
His mother encouraged him to pursue show business, and eventually he decided to make entertainment his profession.
🎭 The music-hall years
Reg belonged to the old British music-hall and variety tradition.
This was a very different form of entertainment from modern television comedy. Performers had to hold an audience's attention themselves, often using:
🎹 Piano playing
🎤 Singing
😂 Jokes
🎭 Character comedy
🕺 Physical comedy
He became an experienced live performer and eventually appeared at London's famous Windmill Theatre.
This background was extremely important to his later success because Reg already understood comic timing and audience interaction long before he became a television star.
🎖️ Second World War
When the Second World War began, Reg's career was interrupted.
🇬🇧 He served with the Royal Engineers.
But he continued performing during his military service, entertaining troops and touring the Far East as an Army entertainer.
🎹 His energetic piano performances also became part of his comedy style.
After the war, he returned to professional entertainment.
😂 Reg Varney & Benny Hill
One fascinating chapter in his career came after the war.
🎭 Reg worked in a revue called Gaytime, where his comedy partner/straight man was a young Benny Hill.
So two future British television comedy stars were working together before either had become famous.
Reg's career, however, developed more slowly than Hill's. At one stage, Varney was frustrated by the decline of the traditional music halls and even considered leaving show business and running a pub.
📺 The Rag Trade — his big television breakthrough
Reg eventually found success on television.
⭐ The Rag Trade (1961–1963)
He played Reg Turner, a factory foreman.
The BBC sitcom was a major breakthrough for him and established him as a nationally recognised television comedian.
This was important because it proved Reg could successfully transfer his old-school variety comedy to television.
📺 Beggar My Neighbour
In the 1960s, Reg continued appearing on television.
One of his other notable sitcom roles was in:
⭐ Beggar My Neighbour (1966–1968)
By now he was an established television comedian.
But his greatest role was still ahead of him.
🏧 The ATM story — a piece of history!
This is probably the strangest fact about Reg Varney.
💷 In 1967, Reg Varney became the first person to use a cash machine.
Barclays was demonstrating a new cash-dispensing machine at its branch in Enfield.
Reg was invited to make the first public withdrawal.
🏧 He inserted the special cheque/card arrangement and the machine dispensed £10.
So the man who would soon become famous as a bus driver was also involved in the early history of the ATM.
Important distinction: Reg did not invent the ATM. He was the person chosen to make the first public demonstration/withdrawal.
🚌 On the Buses
⭐ The role that made him famous
In 1969, Reg Varney became Stan Butler in ITV's On the Buses.
Stan was a bus driver working for the fictional Luxton & District Traction Company.
His conductor and best friend was:
👨 Jack Harper — Bob Grant
His great enemy was:
👮 Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake — Stephen Lewis
And at home he lived with his family, including his mother and sister Olive.
The basic formula was simple:
🚌 Stan drives the bus
😂 Stan tries to avoid work
👩 Stan and Jack chase women
👮 Blakey tries to control them
💥 Everything goes wrong
It became one of Britain's most recognisable sitcom formulas.
The show ran from 1969 to 1973, across seven series, and was watched by audiences of up to around 16 million.
😄 Stan Butler's personality
Stan was:
😏 Cheeky
🛌 Work-shy
❤️ A ladies' man
😂 Mischievous
🙄 Anti-authority
🚌 Proud of being a bus driver
👩 Always interested in women
👮 Constantly irritating Blakey
His relationship with Blakey was the heart of much of the comedy.
Blakey's famous:
"I 'ate you, Butler!"
became one of the show's signature lines.
🤯 The incredible age difference
Here's something that surprises many people.
When On the Buses began in 1969, Reg Varney was already 52.
Yet Stan Butler was portrayed as a much younger, eligible bachelor.
🎂 Reg Varney: born 1916
🚌 On the Buses: began 1969
🎭 Reg's age at the start: 52
He was therefore playing a character considerably younger than himself.
His energy and youthful appearance helped make it believable.
🎬 The On the Buses films
The television show's popularity led to three cinema films:
🎬 1. On the Buses — 1971
The first film was an enormous success and became the biggest British box-office hit of 1971.
🎬 2. Mutiny on the Buses — 1972
Reg returned as Stan, alongside Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis.
🎬 3. Holiday on the Buses — 1973
The third film moved the action away from the normal bus depot setting and completed the original film trilogy.
🌍 International fame
Although On the Buses was particularly British in its humour, it became popular internationally.
📺 The series was exported to several countries.
✈️ Reg also toured overseas with his cabaret act, including performances in:
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
His Cockney accent was apparently difficult for some American viewers to understand, which limited its success in parts of the United States.
🎭 Reg wasn't only Stan Butler
After On the Buses, Reg tried to demonstrate that he could play more serious and unusual roles.
One example was:
🎭 The Best Pair of Legs in the Business
He played a drag artist whose career was fading.
The role was considerably more dramatic and melancholic than Stan Butler, and it received praise from figures including Harold Pinter and John Osborne, although the later film version was not a major commercial success.
This showed that Varney had considerably more range than his famous bus-driver character suggested.
📺 Later television
Reg continued working after On the Buses.
Among his later projects was:
📺 Down the 'Gate — 1975–1976
He also continued performing live and working in radio.
By the 1990s, however, he was increasingly withdrawing from television work.
🎨 Reg the painter
In later life, Reg developed a serious interest in painting.
🎨 He particularly enjoyed painting landscapes.
He became sufficiently accomplished that some of his paintings were exhibited in London.
This was a very different side of the man who audiences knew as the cheeky Stan Butler.
📖 His autobiography
In 1990, Reg published his autobiography:
📖 The Little Clown
The title referred to his early attraction to entertainment and his beginnings as a performer.
It gives an insight into his childhood, his early career and his experiences in show business.
👨👩👧 Family life
Reg married Lilian Emma Flavell in 1939.
❤️ They remained married until Lilian's death in 2002.
👧 They had one daughter, Jeanne.
His wife was an important influence on him and was described as someone who helped keep his worries about his career in perspective.
🏡 Later years
Reg eventually moved from the London area to Devon.
In later life he divided his time between Devon and Malta.
🎨 He painted
📻 He occasionally worked in radio
📺 He made occasional television appearances
🌿 He largely enjoyed a quieter retirement
One of his later television appearances was on Paul Merton's Life of Comedy in 1995, where he appeared as a bingo caller.
🕯️ Death
Reg Varney died on:
📅 16 November 2008
🎂 Age: 92
📍 Budleigh Salterton, Devon
He died following a chest infection.
His wife Lilian had died six years earlier.
He was survived by his daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchild.
🏆 Reg Varney's legacy
Reg Varney's career is much bigger than On the Buses.
🎯 Area⭐ Reg Varney👶 Born11 July 1916📍 Birthplace Canning Town, East London
🎹 First career Pianist
🎭 Early profession Music-hall/variety entertainer
🎖️ WWII Royal Engineers / Army entertainer
😂 Comedy partner Benny Hill
📺 First major TV success The Rag Trade
📺 Another sitcom Beggar My Neighbour
🚌 Most famous role Stan Butler
📺 On the Buses1969–1973
🎬 Films3 On the Buses films
🏧 Historic moment First public ATM user
🎨 Later passion Painting
📖 Autobiography The Little Clown
💍 Wife Lilian Emma Flavell
👧 Daughter Jeanne
⚰️ Died16 November 2008🎂 Age92
⭐ In one sentence
Reg Varney was an East End pianist who became a music-hall comedian, wartime entertainer, television star, film actor, international performer and painter—and ultimately became immortal as Stan Butler, the cheeky bus driver of On the Buses.
