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

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

Despite a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, 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 - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, occasionally, physically confronted by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales consistently voiced her pleasure in having been part 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 deeply in love with the theatre - with her mother, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for family life.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - obtained a role as an assistant stage manager.

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

During her theatrical training, 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 chronicler, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella concealed her privileged background, aware that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in their actors.

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

There was an early television appearance in 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 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, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

During 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 also met fellow actor Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they became a couple, and wed in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity 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 BBC.

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

She later remembered that Cleese maintained high standards.

"John, appropriately, demanded strict script adherence, and failure to comply would understandably provoke his irritation."

Only 12 episodes were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

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

At first, John Cleese and his wife had doubts regarding the treatment.

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

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after elegant characters.

However when questioned about her career pinnacle, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it helped get audience members 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 the television industry, comprising a stint as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on audio broadcasts, particularly the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales performed at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she performed 400 times.

She obtained correspondence 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 clarified. "I was thrilled."

During 1995, she began starring as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for the retail chain 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 some gentle criticism for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

One of her finest performances came in 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