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

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

Although a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by comedian John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests 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, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were part of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have removed themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world in the Guildford area on June 22nd, 1932.

She belonged to a household deeply in love with theatrical arts - her mother being, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for family life.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

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

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in her hometown, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

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

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

The youthful Prunella also hid her privileged background, conscious that producers started seeking a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in plays, and, while rehearsing for a part at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which included Peter Cushing - more famous for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

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

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, 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 wed in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

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

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 the Sybil role but she had turned it down and Scales auditioned for the role.

She subsequently recalled 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."

Merely twelve installments were ever made.

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

Scales carefully considered about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be inferior to her husband Basil's.

At first, the creators were unsure about the treatment.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," recalled Scales, "they embraced the concept completely."

Later in her career, she was, all too often, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired elegant characters.

However when questioned about what she thought was the high point, Scales immediately identified in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it helped get audience members 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 said.

Subsequent Work and Private World

After Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in the television industry, including an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, 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 appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

She once received a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

"The response was automatic," she clarified. "I was thrilled."

During 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was identified as the primary reason in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

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

One of her finest performances came in the production Breaking the Code, the movie concerning World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who embodies a society that criminalized same-sex relationships, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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