The Legendary Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at the age of 93, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Although a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable 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 comedian John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been yelled at, completely overlooked or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a humorous triumph.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world near Guildford on 22 June 1932.

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

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

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - two years later - secured a position as an assistant stage manager.

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

During her theatrical training, 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 subsequently informed her chronicler, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

The youthful Prunella concealed her privileged background, aware that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in their actors.

But she started picking up minor parts in plays, and, while rehearsing for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - more famous for his horror film performances - as Mr. Darcy.

Her initial film appearances followed the next year - in romantic comedy, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a brief stint as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

After what Prunella described 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 BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Subsequently arrived 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.

Performer Bridget Turner had been approached to play Sybil Fawlty 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."

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired 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 how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be below her husband Basil's.

At first, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about this approach.

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

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, called upon to play stern matriarchs when she desired elegant characters.

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

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it helped get audience members 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.

Later Career and Personal Life

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, including an engagement as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, notably the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of the program Woman's Hour.

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

She obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

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

During 1995, she started appearing as Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid-nineties.

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles came in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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