Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at the age of 93, 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 throughout her existence to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

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

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

Although many actors would have removed themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world 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 given it all up for family life.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, 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.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she later told her chronicler, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, conscious that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in their actors.

But she started picking up small roles in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

There was an early television appearance in the year 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production 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 the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the late 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 Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

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

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

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

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, 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 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 debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

Scales carefully considered about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be below her husband Basil's.

Initially, the creators had doubts regarding this approach.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," recalled Scales, "they embraced the concept completely."

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after 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 believed it assisted in bringing the paying public into theaters.

"I like to think that if the public have seen you in one thing they'll come and see you in another," she expressed.

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, notably the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter from a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

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

In 1995, she started appearing as Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The campaign, which continued for nine years, was cited as the primary reason in establishing its dominant market position in the mid-nineties.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the commercial campaign, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles came in Breaking the Code, the film about World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that criminalized same-sex relationships, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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