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

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

Despite an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by John Cleese - between cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were components of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a humorous triumph.

Although numerous performers 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.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

She belonged to a household deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for family life.

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

In 1949, she earned a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - 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 and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

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

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

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

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

Her initial television exposure occurred in the year 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

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

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a brief stint as transport worker, Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they got together, and married in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her major television opportunity came with the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

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

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

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the BBC.

Actress Bridget Turner had been considered for Sybil Fawlty but she declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

She subsequently recalled that Cleese maintained high standards.

"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 ever made.

The first series, which debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances 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.

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

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

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

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

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it assisted in bringing audience members 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 said.

Subsequent Work and Private World

After Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in the television industry, comprising an engagement as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part 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 Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she performed 400 times.

She obtained correspondence from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

"The response was automatic," she clarified. "The experience delighted me."

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

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the primary reason in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

One of her finest performances 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, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

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