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

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

Despite an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her friend, Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been shouted 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 meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a humorous triumph.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born in the Guildford area on 22 June 1932.

She belonged to a household profoundly passionate about the theatre - with her mother, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for marriage and children.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - two years later - obtained a role as an assistant stage manager.

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer rather than an obvious Juliet.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella concealed her privileged background, conscious that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in their actors.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she encountered actor 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 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - better known for his roles in horror movies - as Mr. Darcy.

And her first big screen roles came a year later - in romantic comedy, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor 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 BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

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

Then came the legendary Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of their comedy creation to the broadcasting corporation.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for the Sybil role but she had turned it down and Scales tried out for the character.

She subsequently recalled that Cleese maintained high standards.

"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 ultimately produced.

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

Scales carefully considered about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and determined that her social background had to be below Basil's social standing.

Initially, the creators had doubts regarding the treatment.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," recalled Scales, "they embraced the concept completely."

In subsequent years, she frequently found herself, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired elegant characters.

But when asked about her career pinnacle, Scales had no hesitation in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "but I'm still proud of it." 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 a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, notably the comedy program After Henry, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales performed at two major royal roles; 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 obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

"It was a knee-jerk reaction," she explained. "The experience delighted me."

In 1995, she began starring as character Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for the retail chain Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The advertising series, which continued for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for participating in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

One of her finest performances appeared in Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

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