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

Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

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

It was Sybil's mission in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by comedian John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were components of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a humorous triumph.

Although many actors would have removed themselves from too close an association 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 came into the world near Guildford on 22 June 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with the theatre - with her mother, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for family life.

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

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

This decision angered of her previous school principal in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

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 biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

The youthful Prunella concealed her privileged background, aware that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

Her initial television exposure occurred in the year 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - more famous for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

And her first big screen roles came a year later - in romantic comedy, the film 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, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered fellow actor Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they got together, and wed in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

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

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

Then came the legendary Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

Actress Bridget Turner had been approached to play Sybil Fawlty but she had turned it down and Scales auditioned for the role.

She later remembered that Cleese was a hard taskmaster.

"John, appropriately, demanded strict script adherence, and failure to comply would understandably provoke his irritation."

Only 12 episodes were ultimately produced.

The initial season, 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 carefully considered 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.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," 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.

However when questioned about what she thought was the high point, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it assisted in bringing the paying public into performance venues.

"I believe that audience familiarity with one performance encourages attendance at others," she said.

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, notably the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; 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 obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed that when Scales came on stage, he rose to his feet.

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

In 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for the retail chain Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

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

Scales later came in for some gentle criticism for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her London community.

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

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

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