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

Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Despite a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by comedian John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

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

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were components of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a comic masterpiece.

Although numerous performers would have distanced themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - with her mother, Catherine Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up 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 won 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 former headmistress in her hometown, who had hoped she would apply 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 rather than a natural Juliet candidate.

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

Young Prunella also hid her privileged background, conscious that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in plays, and, while rehearsing for a part at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - more famous for his roles in horror movies - as Mr Darcy.

And her first big screen roles followed the next year - in romantic comedy, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, opposite Charles Laughton.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a short appearance as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break arrived through Marriage Lines, a comedy program 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 continued for five seasons.

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

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 declined the part 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 ever made.

The initial season, which aired 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 social background 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," Scales remembered, "they embraced the concept completely."

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

However when questioned about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it assisted in bringing audience members 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 expressed.

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, comprising a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, particularly 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 Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth II in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's work, and as Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she performed 400 times.

She once received a letter from a royal protection officer who confessed that when Scales came on stage, he rose to his feet.

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

In 1995, she began starring as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The advertising series, which continued for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for taking part in the commercial campaign, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

One of her finest performances came in the production Breaking the Code, the film about World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as 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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