Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

Despite a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by 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 in one of his more manic moods.

Her unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were part of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

Although numerous performers would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

She belonged to a household 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, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution 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 a stage management assistant.

This decision angered of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to tell them so.

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer instead of an obvious Juliet.

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, aware that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in plays, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - more famous for his horror film performances - as Mr. Darcy.

And her first big screen roles followed the next year - in lighthearted romance, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, alongside the renowned Charles Laughton.

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a short appearance as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a comedy program about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

Scales performed alongside Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in television comedy. 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 presented the initial screenplay of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

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

She subsequently recalled 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 ever made.

The first series, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

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

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

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after 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, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it helped get the paying public into performance venues.

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

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

Scales appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

She once received a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

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

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

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

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for taking part in the commercial campaign, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

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

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

Beyond performance, {Scales was