The Legendary Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

Despite an extensive and respected professional journey across theater and film, her legacy will forever be linked as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective in life to closely monitor her "stick insect" husband Basil - portrayed by John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her friend, Audrey.

She was tasked to calm visitors who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, occasionally, physically confronted by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were components of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

Although numerous performers 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 was born in the Guildford area on 22 June 1932.

She belonged to a household 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, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - after two years - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

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

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of 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 also hid her middle-class roots, conscious that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in plays, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

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

Her initial film appearances came a year later - in romantic comedy, 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 - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

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

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

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of their comedy creation to the broadcasting corporation.

Actress 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 first series, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

At first, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about the treatment.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," recalled Scales, "they were sold on the idea."

Later in her career, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she desired elegant characters.

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

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it helped get audience members into performance venues.

"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

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

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on audio broadcasts, 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 appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the television drama of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

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

"The response was automatic," she clarified. "The experience delighted me."

During 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 identified as the primary reason in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

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 represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

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