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

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

Although a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by comedian John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her 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 nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were part of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

Although numerous performers would have removed themselves from excessive identification with a single role, 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.

She belonged to a household deeply in love with theatrical arts - her mother being, Catherine Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up for family life.

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

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre 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 hoped she would apply to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

During her theatrical training, Scales was perceived as a junior character actor rather than an obvious Juliet.

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

The youthful Prunella also hid her privileged background, aware that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in plays, and, while rehearsing for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

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

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

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

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they got together, and married in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

Scales performed alongside actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in television comedy. The show proved hugely popular and ran for five years.

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

John Cleese and his then wife, 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 declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

She later remembered 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."

Only 12 episodes were ever made.

The first series, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales thought hard about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and determined 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."

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 what she thought was the high point, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it assisted in bringing the paying public 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 maintained her career in television, including an engagement 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 the series Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth in the television drama 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 a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales came on stage, he rose to his feet.

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

In 1995, she began starring as Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for the retail chain Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor 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 area of London.

One of her finest performances came in the production Breaking the Code, the film about World War II cryptanalysts.

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

Away from acting, {Scales was