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

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was regarded as one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Despite an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to closely monitor her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been yelled at, completely overlooked or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were part of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

It was a family deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for marriage and children.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - secured a position 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 had been thought of as a developing character performer instead of an obvious Juliet.

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

The youthful Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, conscious that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in theatrical productions, and, during preparations 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 the year 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured actor Peter Cushing - better known for his roles in horror movies - as Mr Darcy.

And her first big screen roles came a year later - in romantic comedy, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including a short appearance as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales performed alongside Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular and continued for five seasons.

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

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of Fawlty Towers to the broadcasting corporation.

Actress Bridget Turner had been considered for Sybil Fawlty but she had turned it down 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 ultimately produced.

The first series, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of ridiculous physical comedy and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales thought hard about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and determined that her character's upbringing had to be below her husband Basil's.

At first, the creators were unsure about this approach.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," recalled Scales, "they were sold on the idea."

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired elegant characters.

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

"It was a tough job," she insisted, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought it helped get the paying public 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, including a stint as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, notably the comedy program After Henry, which subsequently transferred to television, and Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of 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 performed 400 times.

She obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men 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 the retail chain Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

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

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

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

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

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