Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Despite an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to keep tabs on her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

It fell to her to placate guests who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were part of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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 - with her mother, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for family life.

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - two years later - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer rather than a natural Juliet candidate.

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, aware that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in plays, and, while rehearsing for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - more famous for his roles in horror movies - as Mr. Darcy.

And her first big screen roles followed the next year - in lighthearted romance, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

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

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

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

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in television comedy. The show proved hugely popular and continued for five seasons.

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

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

Actress Bridget Turner had been considered for the Sybil role 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 debuted in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

Initially, the creators had doubts regarding this approach.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," 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 her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," 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

After Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in the television industry, including an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, notably the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales performed 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 one-woman show 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.

"The response was automatic," she clarified. "I was thrilled."

In 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 continued for nine years, was identified as the primary reason in establishing its dominant market position in the mid-nineties.

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

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

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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