The Legendary Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

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

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

Sybil's primary objective in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were part of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born 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, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

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

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

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

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

Young Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, conscious that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in their actors.

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

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - better known for his roles in horror movies - as Mr. Darcy.

And her first big screen roles followed the next year - in lighthearted romance, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, including a short appearance as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program 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 continued for five seasons.

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

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

Actress Bridget Turner had been approached to play Sybil Fawlty but she declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

She subsequently recalled that Cleese was a hard taskmaster.

"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, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales carefully considered about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be below Basil's social standing.

At first, John Cleese and his wife 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, 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 selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it assisted in bringing the paying public into theaters.

"I believe that audience familiarity with one performance encourages attendance at others," she said.

Later Career and Personal Life

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

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, particularly 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 performed two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth II in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she performed 400 times.

She once received a letter from a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

"It was a knee-jerk reaction," she clarified. "The experience delighted me."

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

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

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

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

She portrays the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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