Prunella Scales: Beginning with the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at the age of 93, was considered 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 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 placate guests who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were components of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

And while numerous performers would have removed themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

She belonged to a household deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for marriage and children.

Bright and bookish, 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 decision angered of her former headmistress in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

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."

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

But she started picking up minor parts in plays, and, while rehearsing for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included Peter Cushing - more famous for his roles in horror movies - as Mr. Darcy.

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

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including a short appearance as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in 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.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break came with the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

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.

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

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

Actress Bridget Turner had been considered for the Sybil role 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 ever made.

The first series, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

Scales thought hard about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and determined that her social background had to be inferior to her husband Basil's.

At first, the creators were unsure about the treatment.

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

Later in her career, she was, all too often, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after elegant characters.

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

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, 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 II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's work, and as Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she performed 400 times.

She obtained correspondence from a royal protection officer who confessed that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

"It was a knee-jerk reaction," she clarified. "I was thrilled."

In 1995, she began starring as character Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for supermarket giant Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative 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 appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

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