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

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Despite 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, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to closely monitor 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, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were part of a carefully constructed character that stands as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Formative Years and Professional Start

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born near Guildford on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - with her mother, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up for family life.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

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

This decision angered of her previous school principal in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer rather than a natural Juliet candidate.

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

The youthful Prunella concealed her privileged background, aware that producers started seeking a new kind of earthy credibility in their actors.

But she started picking up small roles in plays, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in the famous series.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - better known for his roles in horror movies - 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 late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they became a couple, and wed in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

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

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular and continued for five seasons.

Subsequently arrived the legendary Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the broadcasting corporation.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for Sybil Fawlty but she declined the part and Scales tried out for the character.

She later remembered 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 ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

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, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about this approach.

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

In subsequent years, she frequently found herself, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after elegant characters.

However when questioned about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it assisted in bringing the paying public 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 expressed.

Later Career and Personal Life

After Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, including an engagement as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, 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 Woman's Hour.

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

She obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

"It was a knee-jerk reaction," she clarified. "I was thrilled."

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

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

Scales later came in for moderate critique for taking part in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles came in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that criminalized same-sex relationships, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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