Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

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

Although a long and distinguished professional journey across theater and film, she will inevitably be remembered as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her 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, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a humorous triumph.

Although many actors would have removed themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

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

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

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

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

The youthful Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, aware 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 the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - more famous for his roles in horror movies - 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, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

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

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they became a couple, and wed in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Subsequently arrived the legendary Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

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

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for Sybil Fawlty but she had turned it down and Scales auditioned for the role.

She later remembered 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 ever made.

The first series, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

At first, John Cleese and his wife had doubts regarding this approach.

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

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after elegant characters.

However when questioned about her career pinnacle, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought it helped get the paying public into theaters.

"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 maintained her career in the television industry, comprising a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales performed at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth II in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she presented four hundred times.

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

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

In 1995, she started appearing as Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for supermarket giant Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

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

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

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

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