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

Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Despite a long and distinguished professional journey across theater and film, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence 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 calm visitors who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a humorous triumph.

Although numerous performers would have distanced themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born in the Guildford area on 22 June 1932.

She belonged to a household profoundly passionate about theatrical arts - her mother being, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up for family life.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This decision angered of her previous school principal in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to tell them so.

At drama school, Scales was perceived as a developing character performer instead of an obvious Juliet.

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

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

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

Her initial television exposure occurred in the year 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured 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 production Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in 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 Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

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

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

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 approached to play the Sybil role but she declined the part 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 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 portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be below her husband Basil's.

Initially, the creators were unsure about the treatment.

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

Later in her career, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

However when questioned about what she thought was the high point, Scales had no hesitation in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it helped get the paying public into theaters.

"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 maintained her career in the television industry, including a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, particularly the comedy program After Henry, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth II in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter from a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

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

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

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

Scales later came in for some gentle criticism for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

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

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

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