Prunella Scales: From the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who died at the age of 93, was regarded as one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Although an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as 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 telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

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

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

And while many actors would have removed themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales consistently voiced her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

She belonged to a household deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

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

In 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - after two years - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of 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."

Young Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, aware that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in their actors.

But she started picking up minor parts in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in the year 1952, as 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.

Her initial film appearances came a year later - 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 - appearing on stage, film and television, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, 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 wed in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break came with the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The show proved hugely popular and continued for five seasons.

Subsequently arrived 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.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for 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, appropriately, demanded strict script adherence, and failure to comply would understandably provoke his irritation."

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

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

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

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," Scales remembered, "they were sold on the idea."

Later in her career, she was, all too often, called upon to play stern matriarchs when she hankered after 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 maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought it assisted in bringing audience members into theaters.

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career 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 audio broadcasts, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of 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 once received a letter from a royal protection officer who confessed that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

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

During 1995, she began starring as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

One of her finest performances came in the production Breaking the Code, the movie concerning the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that criminalized same-sex relationships, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

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