The Legendary Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was considered one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Despite an extensive and respected professional journey across theater and film, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by John Cleese - between cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to calm visitors who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a humorous triumph.

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born near Guildford on June 22nd, 1932.

She belonged to a household profoundly passionate about theatrical arts - her mother being, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

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

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

This decision angered of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

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

"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, conscious that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in their actors.

But she started picking up small roles in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a part at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - better known for his roles in horror movies - as Mr Darcy.

Her initial film appearances came a year later - in lighthearted romance, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including a short appearance as transport worker, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

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

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

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

Performer 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."

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

The first series, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

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

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

In subsequent years, she frequently found herself, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she desired more glamorous roles.

But when asked about her career pinnacle, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it helped get 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 continued to work in television, comprising a stint as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's 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 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 Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 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 explained. "The experience delighted me."

In 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

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

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

One of her finest performances came in the production Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was