The Legendary Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

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

Although a long and distinguished professional journey across theater and film, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

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

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were part of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a comic masterpiece.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

It was a family profoundly passionate about the theatre - with her mother, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for family life.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

In 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - obtained a role 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 wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

At drama school, Scales had been thought of as a junior character actor rather than an obvious Juliet.

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

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

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in plays, and, while rehearsing for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in the famous series.

There was an early television appearance 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 romantic comedy, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom 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 continued for five seasons.

Then came Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for the Sybil role but she declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

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."

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

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

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

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

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

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired more glamorous roles.

But when asked 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 believed it assisted in bringing the paying public 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.

Later Career and Personal Life

After Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in television, comprising an engagement as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on audio broadcasts, particularly the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales performed two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth in the television drama 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 confessed that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

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

In 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 advertising series, which continued for nine years, was identified as the primary reason in establishing its dominant market position in the mid-nineties.

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

Among her most accomplished roles came in the production Breaking the Code, the film about World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was