The Legendary Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

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

Despite 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 comedian John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to calm visitors who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a comic masterpiece.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world near Guildford on 22 June 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - her mother being, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre 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 wished she would seek admission 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.

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

Young Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, conscious that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in their actors.

But she started picking up minor parts in theatrical productions, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as 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.

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

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including 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 gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break arrived through Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

Scales performed alongside Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The program achieved great success and continued for five seasons.

Subsequently arrived 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 approached to play Sybil Fawlty but she declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

She later remembered that Cleese maintained high standards.

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

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

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

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

At first, the creators had doubts regarding this approach.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," Scales remembered, "they were sold on the idea."

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

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

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

"I believe that audience familiarity with one performance encourages attendance at others," she expressed.

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, notably the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of the program 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 presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed 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 a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

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

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning World War II cryptanalysts.

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was