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

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

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

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to keep tabs on her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by comedian John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

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

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were components of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a humorous triumph.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales always expressed her pleasure in having been part of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Formative Years and Professional Start

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born in the Guildford area on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - with her mother, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

In 1949, she earned a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and sent correspondence to the theater to tell them so.

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of as a junior character actor instead of an obvious Juliet.

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

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

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in plays, and, while rehearsing for a role 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 the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of 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, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, opposite 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, Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She also met 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 big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Subsequently arrived the legendary Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the broadcasting corporation.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for 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."

Merely twelve installments were ever made.

The initial season, which debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

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

Initially, the creators had doubts regarding this approach.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," 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.

However when questioned about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it assisted in bringing 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.

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in television, including a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, particularly the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and the series Ladies of Letters, with actress 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 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 one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales came on stage, he rose to his feet.

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

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 advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor 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 supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in the production Breaking the Code, the movie concerning World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as 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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