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

Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

Despite a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to keep tabs on her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by comedian John Cleese - between cigarette-fuelled phone conversations 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, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were components of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a humorous triumph.

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

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

It was a family profoundly passionate about the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up for marriage and children.

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.

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

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

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

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

The youthful Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, conscious that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

But she started picking up minor parts in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met actor 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 Pride and Prejudice, which featured 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 production Hobson's Choice, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

Following what she characterized 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 the series Marriage Lines, a comedy program about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

Scales performed alongside actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in television comedy. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Then came 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.

Actress Bridget Turner had been approached to play the Sybil role but she had turned it down and Scales tried out for the character.

She subsequently recalled 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."

Only 12 episodes were ultimately produced.

The first series, which debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

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

Initially, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about this approach.

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

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

However when questioned about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified 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 believe that audience familiarity with one performance encourages attendance at others," she expressed.

Later Career and Personal Life

After Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, including an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

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

Scales appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the television drama of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she performed 400 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.

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

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

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the primary reason in propelling it to market leadership in the mid-nineties.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her London community.

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

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

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