Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was regarded as one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Although 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.

Sybil's primary objective in life to keep tabs on her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by comedian John Cleese - between cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her friend, 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 unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a humorous triumph.

Although numerous performers would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

It was a family profoundly passionate about the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

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

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

During her theatrical training, Scales was perceived as a junior character actor instead of an obvious Juliet.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she later told her chronicler, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

Young Prunella concealed her privileged background, 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 role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured actor Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

And her first big screen roles came a year later - in lighthearted romance, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

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

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

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

Scales performed alongside actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular 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 submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the BBC.

Performer Bridget Turner had been approached to play Sybil Fawlty but she declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

She subsequently recalled 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 ever made.

The first series, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

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

At first, John Cleese and his wife had doubts regarding the treatment.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," recalled Scales, "they were sold on the idea."

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, called upon to play stern matriarchs when she desired elegant characters.

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

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it helped get 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 maintained her career in television, 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 subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

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

She obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

"The response was automatic," she explained. "The experience delighted me."

During 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for the retail chain Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The advertising series, which continued for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid-nineties.

Scales later came in for some gentle criticism for participating in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

One of her finest performances appeared in the production Breaking the Code, the movie concerning World War II cryptanalysts.

She portrays the mother of Alan Turing, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Away from acting, {Scales was