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

Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Although an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective in life to closely monitor her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by comedian John Cleese - between cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

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

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a humorous triumph.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

She belonged to a household deeply in love with theatrical arts - with her mother, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for family life.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

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

During her theatrical training, Scales was perceived as a junior character actor instead of a natural Juliet candidate.

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

The youthful Prunella also hid her privileged background, aware that producers started seeking a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

But she started picking up small roles in plays, and, during preparations for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, 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 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included Peter Cushing - more famous for his horror film performances - as Mr. Darcy.

Her initial film appearances came a year later - in lighthearted romance, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

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

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.

Subsequently arrived Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

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 had turned it down and Scales auditioned for the role.

She later remembered that Cleese was a hard taskmaster.

"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 comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

Scales carefully considered about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be inferior to her husband Basil's.

At first, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about the treatment.

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

In subsequent years, she frequently found herself, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired more glamorous roles.

But when asked about what she thought was the high point, Scales immediately identified in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it helped get the paying public into theaters.

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in the television industry, including a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, notably the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in 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 one-woman show that she presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

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

In 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for the retail chain Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

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

Scales later came in for some gentle criticism for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles came in the production Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that criminalized same-sex relationships, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Beyond performance, {Scales was