Prunella Scales: From the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

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 professional journey across theater and film, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were components of a carefully constructed character 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 participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

She belonged to a household profoundly passionate about the theatre - her mother being, Catherine Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up for family life.

Intelligent and studious, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won 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 Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

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

"Everyone aspired to resemble 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 producers started seeking 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 met actor Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production 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 followed the next year - in romantic comedy, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, 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 major television opportunity arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in television comedy. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Then came the legendary Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of their comedy creation to the broadcasting corporation.

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

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."

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which debuted in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

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

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

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

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired elegant characters.

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 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 expressed.

Later Career and Personal Life

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

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, particularly the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter 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 explained. "I was thrilled."

In 1995, she started appearing as 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-nineties.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

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

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Beyond performance, {Scales was