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.

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

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - portrayed by comedian John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her to placate guests who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

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

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world near Guildford on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Catherine Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in 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 decision angered of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales was perceived as a junior character actor instead of 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 also hid her privileged background, aware that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in their actors.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in plays, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - more famous for his roles in horror movies - as Mr. Darcy.

Her initial film appearances came a year later - in romantic comedy, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a short appearance as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they got together, and married in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break came with the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

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

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

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the BBC.

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

She subsequently recalled that Cleese maintained high standards.

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

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its hilarious mix of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

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

Initially, the creators had doubts regarding this approach.

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

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

But when asked about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

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

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

After Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in television, including an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, particularly the comedy program After Henry, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

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

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

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

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

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the primary reason in propelling it to market leadership in the mid-nineties.

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

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

Beyond performance, {Scales was