Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

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

Although a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by comedian John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a humorous triumph.

And while numerous performers would have removed themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world in the Guildford area on 22 June 1932.

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

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

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

This decision angered of her former headmistress in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales was perceived as a junior character actor rather than an obvious Juliet.

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

The youthful Prunella also hid her privileged background, aware that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in performers.

But she started picking up small roles in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in the year 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, which featured actor Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr. Darcy.

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

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered fellow actor Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

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

Then came the legendary Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of their comedy creation to the BBC.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for Sybil Fawlty but she had turned it down and Scales tried out for the character.

She subsequently recalled that Cleese maintained high standards.

"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 ever made.

The initial season, which debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its hilarious mix of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

Scales carefully considered about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be below her husband Basil's.

At first, the creators had doubts regarding the treatment.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," Scales remembered, "they were sold on the idea."

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after elegant characters.

But when asked about her career pinnacle, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," 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 said.

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, comprising an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, notably the comedy program After Henry, which subsequently transferred to television, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she presented four hundred times.

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

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

In 1995, she began starring as Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s.

Scales later came in for some gentle criticism for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

One of her finest performances came in the production Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Away from acting, {Scales was