Prunella Scales: From the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

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

Although an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective in life to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by comedian John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to calm visitors who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were part of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born near Guildford on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - her mother being, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for family life.

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

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

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

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

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in plays, 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.

There was an early television appearance in the year 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured actor Peter Cushing - better known for his roles in horror movies - as Mr Darcy.

Her initial film appearances came a year later - in lighthearted romance, 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, featuring a brief stint as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague 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, the Starling couple.

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

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

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the BBC.

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 was a hard taskmaster.

"John, appropriately, demanded strict script adherence, and failure to comply would understandably provoke his irritation."

Merely twelve installments were ever made.

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

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

At first, the creators had doubts regarding the treatment.

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

Later in her career, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after elegant characters.

But when asked about what she thought was the high point, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought it assisted in bringing 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.

Later Career and Personal Life

After Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in the television industry, including an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, notably the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which later transitioned to TV, and 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 II in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she presented four hundred times.

She obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

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

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 advertising series, which continued for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position 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 the production Breaking the Code, the film about World War II cryptanalysts.

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that criminalized same-sex relationships, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was