The Legendary Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress 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, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to closely monitor her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by comedian John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her friend, Audrey.

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

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

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

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

It was a family profoundly passionate about theatrical arts - her mother being, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for family life.

Intelligent and studious, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - two years later - secured a position as an assistant stage manager.

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to tell them so.

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

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she later told her chronicler, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

The youthful Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, conscious that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in their actors.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, 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 - better known for his roles in horror movies - as Mr Darcy.

And her first big screen roles 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 - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

Following what she characterized 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 the series Marriage Lines, a comedy program about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

Scales performed alongside Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Then came 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 the Sybil role 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 initial season, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales carefully considered about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be inferior to Basil's social standing.

At first, the creators were unsure about this approach.

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

Later in her career, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she desired elegant characters.

However when questioned about what she thought was the high point, Scales immediately identified in picking 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 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

After Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, including a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, 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 II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she presented four hundred times.

She obtained correspondence from a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

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

In 1995, she started appearing as Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The advertising series, which continued for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor 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 backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She portrays the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Beyond performance, {Scales was