Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

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

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by comedian John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

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

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have distanced themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth came into the world near Guildford on 22 June 1932.

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

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - two years later - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This decision angered of her previous school principal in her hometown, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

During her theatrical training, Scales was perceived as a developing character performer instead of a natural Juliet candidate.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

The youthful Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, conscious that producers started seeking a new kind of earthy credibility in their actors.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in theatrical productions, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

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

During the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, including a short appearance as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

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

Scales appeared opposite actor 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 submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the BBC.

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

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 ever made.

The initial season, which aired in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

At first, John Cleese and his wife had doubts regarding the treatment.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," recalled Scales, "they were sold on the idea."

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

However when questioned about what she thought was the high point, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it assisted in bringing the paying public into theaters.

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, comprising an engagement 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 subsequently transferred to television, and the series Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance 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.

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

In 1995, she began starring as Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for the retail chain Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

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

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles came in Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that criminalized same-sex relationships, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was