Actor Reg Varney was born into a close knit family of five children. He left school at 14 and worked as a messenger boy and page boy at the Regent Palace Hotel. He took Piano lessons from a young age and also found work as a part-time piano player, playing in working mens' clubs, pubs and cinemas. Reg's mother decided that his future was in show business, and Reg wanted this too, so gave up his day jobs to pursue an entertainment career. Reg entertained troops during World War 2 and worked on stage with Benny Hill on being demobilised. In 1961 Reg got his big break by being cast in 'The Rag Trade', before starring in a solo-show called 'The Seven Faces of Reg Varney' in which he frantically had to change costumes for seven characters and perform each in front of a live audience. Reg suffered his first heart attack in 1965. In 1966 Reg starred in the classic 'St Trinian's Great Train Robbery' and 'Beggar My neighbour', running until 1967. Reg had become a national treasure and famously opened and used the very first ever ATM Cash machine in June 1967. In 1969 he starred in 'Rose and Crown'. Between 1969 and 1973 Reg Varney went from household name to sitcom legend by starring as larky bus driver Stan Butler in LWT's ever-popular series 'On the Buses' and three spin-off movies 'On the Buses', 'Mutiny on the Buses' and 'Holiday on the Buses'. The series spanned 73 episodes, with Reg leaving part-way through the final seventh series having made history with co-stars Bob Grant, Stephen Lewis, Doris Hare, Michael Robbins and Anna Karen. Reg suffered a second, this time major, heart attack in 1981. In 1988 at the age of 72 Reg travelled to Australia where he played Stan in a stage version of 'On the Buses', and in 1990 the entire original cast appeared on the interview series 'Wogan', where Reg announced that a new series called 'Back on the Buses' was in the pipeline. Unfortunately this new series was never made. Reg's health had begun to fail him in the early 1990s and was forced to retire, living alone in Devon with his wife Lilian, who died in 2002 after 63 years of marriage. In late October 2008 Reg was admitted to a nursing home in Devon with an infection and on 16th November 2008 passed away at the grand age of 92. Reg was part of an amazing era of entertainment that has resurfaced greatly in the last few years and has found a new generation of loyal fans all over the world. Reg's funeral took place on December 1st 2008 - he was cremated and his ashes buried with those of his wife in an unmarked plot.∼Actor, comedian and singer who became a household name as the central figure in the popular British situation comedy "On the Buses"