Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was considered one of Britain's finest comic actors.

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

Sybil's primary objective in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by comedian John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were part of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a comic masterpiece.

Although numerous performers would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

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

Intelligent and studious, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

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

This decision angered of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales was perceived as a developing character performer instead of a natural Juliet candidate.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

The youthful Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, conscious that producers started seeking a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in plays, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met 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 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, which featured 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, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they got together, and wed in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

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

Subsequently arrived the legendary Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

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

Actress Bridget Turner had been considered for the Sybil role 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."

Only 12 episodes were ever made.

The first series, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

Scales thought hard about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be inferior to Basil's social standing.

At first, the creators had doubts regarding 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 "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, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought it helped get the paying public into theaters.

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

Later Career and Personal Life

After 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 radio, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales performed two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as 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 stood up.

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

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

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

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her London community.

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

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Beyond performance, {Scales was