page_title: Valet
section_title: Famous fictional valets
hierarchical_section_title: Valet / Domestic valet / Famous fictional valets
caption_attribution_description: English: One of Thomas Nicholls' mahogany carvings of characters from Alexandre Dumas' "The Three Musketeers" at 2 Temple Place on the Embankment in London. There are seven such figures which used to sit on the newel posts of the main staircase. This figure is of Bazin, the valet to Aramis. Bazin was a studious person who later became a lay brother. Nicholls carves him brushing his master's clothes whilst studying theology.
context_page_description: A valet or varlet is a male servant who serves as personal attendant to his employer. In the Middle Ages and Ancien Régime, valet de chambre was a role for junior courtiers and specialists such as artists in a royal court, but the term "valet" by itself most often refers to a normal servant responsible for the clothes and personal belongings of an employer, and making minor arrangements.
  In the United States, the term most often refers to a parking valet, and the role is often confused with a butler.
context_section_description: Jeeves, created in 1915 by P. G. Wodehouse, starred in a series of stories until Wodehouse's death in 1975; Reginald Jeeves is considered the "personification of the perfect valet" since 1930, inspired the name of Internet search engine Ask Jeeves, and is now a generic term in dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary.
  Mervyn Bunter, created in 1923 by Dorothy L. Sayers in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, likewise a paragon of discreet competence, taking his duties beyond what was expected of a valet to help his master.
  Alfred Pennyworth, valet to Bruce Wayne (Batman), created by  Don Cameron and Bob Kane in 1943. Played by Alan Napier in the 1960s TV series and 1966 Batman film starring Adam West, Michael Gough in Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, Michael Caine in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, and most recently by Jeremy Irons in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. Originally a rotund domestic servant in comic stories, the role of Alfred Pennyworth has evolved to a technical and mechanical aide, highly skilled medic, and occasional wheelman for Batman on his various travels.
  Hugo Barrett, in the 1948 Robin Maugham novella, 1958 play and 1963 Joseph Losey film The Servant. Using a very English description of the valet's role, "a gentleman's gentleman", both novella and film explore the relationship of 'servant' to 'master', and the changing nature of this relationship - most especially in Harold Pinter's screenplay.
  Hobson (Sir John Gielgud), from the 1981 comedy film Arthur.
  Kato, Inspector Clouseau's valet and martial arts partner in the Pink Panther movies, introduced in A Shot in the Dark (1964).
  Kato, fictional sidekick/valet of The Green Hornet, created in 1936.
  Passepartout, in the 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.
  George (or Georges), created by Agatha Christie in 1923, in the Hercule Poirot novels.
  Edward Henry Masterman, the victim's valet and a suspect in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934).
  Figaro, the Count of Almaviva's valet from Beaumarchais' play The Marriage of Figaro (1786), as well as the Mozart and Rossini operas based on it.
  Leporello, valet of Don Giovanni in the 1787 opera by Mozart.
  Giles French (Sebastian Cabot) in the sitcom Family Affair (1966–1971).
  Probert (Derek Jacobi), valet to Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon), and Robert Parks (Clive Owen), valet to Lord Stockbridge (Charles Dance), in the 2001 film Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman.
  Baptistin, in The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas.
  Pork, Gerald O'Hara's valet in the 1936 novel Gone With the Wind.
  Smerdyakov, the valet to Fyodor Pavlovitch in The Brothers Karamazov (1879) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
  Woodhouse, Sterling Archer's valet in the television series Archer, created in 2009.
  Sisk, created in Harry Segall's 1938 play, Heaven Can Wait, which was adapted into a 1941 film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and other films.
  "Spicer" Lovejoy (David Warner), millionaire Caledon Hockley's (Billy Zane) English valet in the 1997 film Titanic.
  Rochester van Jones (Eddie Anderson), the valet of Jack Benny on Benny's radio and television shows, introduced in 1937.
  John Bates (Brendan Coyle) first valet to Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), and Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), Lord Grantham's second valet, in the Julian Fellowes period drama Downton Abbey (2010–2015).
  Planchet, valet to D'Artagnan of The Three Musketeers (1844).
  The character "Valet" from No Exit (1944) by Jean-Paul Sartre.
  Sam Weller, valet to Samuel Pickwick in The Pickwick Papers (1836) by Charles Dickens.
  Klaus Hiessler has acted as a valet to Stan Smith on American dad
caption: Carving of "Bazin", the valet to Aramis, of The Three Musketeers, was a studious person who later became a lay brother. (Thomas Nicholls carves him brushing his master's clothes whilst studying theology).
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