The Legendary Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Although an extensive and respected professional journey across theater and film, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

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

She was tasked to placate guests who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were part of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

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

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - 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 and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

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

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

The youthful 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 small roles in theatrical productions, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in the year 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - more famous for his roles in horror movies - as Mr. Darcy.

And her first big screen roles followed the next year - in lighthearted romance, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, including a short appearance as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her major television opportunity came with the series Marriage Lines, a comedy program about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales performed alongside 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 then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the broadcasting corporation.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for the Sybil role but she declined the part 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 debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its hilarious mix of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

Scales carefully considered about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be inferior to her husband Basil's.

At first, the creators had doubts regarding the treatment.

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

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after elegant characters.

But when asked about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she insisted, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it helped get audience members into performance venues.

"I like to think that if the public have seen you in one thing they'll come and see you in another," she said.

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in the television industry, comprising an engagement as the frumpy 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 actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

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

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

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

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

Scales subsequently faced 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 came 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.

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