The Legendary Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was considered one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Although an extensive and respected professional journey across theater and film, her legacy will forever be linked as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to keep tabs on her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were part of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

And while many actors would have removed themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales always expressed her pleasure in having been part of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Formative Years and Professional Start

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born near Guildford on 22 June 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - her mother being, Catherine Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for family life.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This decision angered of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer rather than a natural Juliet candidate.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, aware that producers started seeking a new kind of earthy credibility in their actors.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr. Darcy.

Her initial film appearances followed the next year - in lighthearted romance, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a brief stint as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they got together, and wed in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a comedy program about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

Scales performed alongside actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Subsequently arrived the legendary Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the broadcasting corporation.

Actress Bridget Turner had been approached to play the Sybil role but she had turned it down and Scales tried out for the character.

She subsequently recalled that Cleese was a hard taskmaster.

"John, quite rightly, was extremely rigorous about learning the script, and if you didn't, he could get quite cross, which was fair enough."

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales thought hard about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be inferior to Basil's social standing.

At first, the creators were unsure about this approach.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," recalled Scales, "they were sold on the idea."

In subsequent years, she frequently found herself, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

But when asked about what she thought was the high point, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she insisted, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it assisted in bringing audience members into performance venues.

"I believe that audience familiarity with one performance encourages attendance at others," she expressed.

Later Career and Personal Life

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, including a stint as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, notably the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales performed at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she presented four hundred times.

She obtained correspondence from a royal protection officer who confessed that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

"The response was automatic," she explained. "I was thrilled."

In 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for the retail chain Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in the production Breaking the Code, the movie concerning the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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