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

Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

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

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

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been shouted 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 numerous performers would have removed themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales always expressed her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

It was a family profoundly passionate about the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

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 won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This decision angered of her former headmistress in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

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

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her chronicler, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

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

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

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

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

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - appearing on stage, film and television, including a short appearance as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague 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 major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The program achieved great success and continued for five seasons.

Then came the legendary 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 the Sybil role but she had turned it down and Scales tried out for the character.

She later remembered that Cleese maintained high standards.

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

Only 12 episodes were ever made.

The first series, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales thought hard about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and determined that her social background had to be inferior to Basil's social standing.

At first, the creators were unsure about this approach.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," recalled Scales, "they embraced the concept completely."

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 immediately identified in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

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

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple 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 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 confessed that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

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

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

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was identified 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 Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her London community.

One of her finest performances appeared in the production Breaking the Code, the movie concerning the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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