The Legendary Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at the age of 93, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Although an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

It fell to her to placate guests who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were components of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

And while many actors would have removed themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world in the Guildford area on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

In 1949, she earned a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - two years later - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

At drama school, Scales had been thought of as a junior character actor rather than an obvious Juliet.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

Young Prunella concealed her privileged background, conscious that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in their actors.

But she started picking up small roles in plays, and, while rehearsing for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear 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 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr. Darcy.

And her first big screen roles came a year later - in lighthearted romance, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a brief stint as transport worker, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

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

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales performed alongside actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular and continued for five seasons.

Then came the legendary Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

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

Performer 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 maintained high standards.

"John, appropriately, demanded strict script adherence, and failure to comply would understandably provoke his irritation."

Only 12 episodes were ultimately produced.

The first series, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

Initially, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about the treatment.

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

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

But when asked about what she thought was the high point, Scales immediately identified in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought it helped get audience members into performance venues.

"I like to think that if the public have seen you in one thing they'll come and see you in another," she said.

Later Career and Personal Life

After Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in the television industry, comprising a stint as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

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

Scales appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth II in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

"The response was automatic," she explained. "The experience delighted me."

In 1995, she began starring as Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for the retail chain Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the primary reason in propelling it to market leadership in the mid-nineties.

Scales later came in for some gentle criticism for taking part in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her London community.

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

She portrays the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that criminalized same-sex relationships, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Beyond performance, {Scales was