Prunella Scales: Beginning with 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.

Although a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

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

It fell to her to calm visitors 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 intense anger were components of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a humorous triumph.

And while many actors would have removed themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

She belonged to a household profoundly passionate about the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - after two years - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer rather than a natural Juliet candidate.

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

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

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured actor Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

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

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, including a short appearance as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales performed alongside actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular and ran for five years.

Then came 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 broadcasting corporation.

Actress Bridget Turner had been approached to play Sybil Fawlty but she declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

She subsequently recalled that Cleese was a hard taskmaster.

"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 aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

Scales carefully considered about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be below her husband Basil's.

At first, the creators had doubts regarding the treatment.

"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 stern matriarchs when she desired elegant characters.

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 even thought it helped get the paying public into performance venues.

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

Later Career and Personal Life

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in the television industry, including an engagement as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on audio broadcasts, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales performed two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

She obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

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

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

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

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

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

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