The Legendary Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was regarded as one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

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

It was Sybil's mission in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

She was tasked to calm visitors who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were part of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a humorous triumph.

And while numerous performers would have distanced themselves from excessive identification 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 was born near Guildford on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family profoundly passionate about theatrical arts - with her mother, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

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

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

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

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

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

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

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

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

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

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The show proved hugely popular and ran for five years.

Subsequently arrived Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

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

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

She later remembered 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."

Only 12 episodes were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired 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 portraying Sybil Fawlty, and determined that her social background had to be below her husband Basil's.

At first, the creators had doubts regarding the treatment.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," Scales remembered, "they embraced the concept completely."

In subsequent years, she frequently found herself, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

But when asked about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it helped get 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 television, including an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

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

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

She once received a letter from a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

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

During 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid-nineties.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing 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 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