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

Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was regarded as 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.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

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

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

And while many actors would have removed themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - with her mother, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for family life.

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of as a junior character actor rather than a natural Juliet candidate.

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her chronicler, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, aware that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in performers.

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

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

And her first big screen roles followed the next year - in romantic comedy, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, opposite Charles Laughton.

Throughout 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 fellow actor 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 arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a comedy program about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

Scales performed alongside Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars 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 spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the broadcasting corporation.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for the Sybil role 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."

Only 12 episodes were ever made.

The initial season, which debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and embarrassing situations grew in popularity.

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

At first, the creators had doubts regarding this approach.

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

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

But when asked about what she thought was the high point, Scales immediately identified in picking Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she insisted, "but I'm still proud of it." 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.

Later Career and Personal Life

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales continued to work in television, including an engagement as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth 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 admitted that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

"It was a knee-jerk reaction," she explained. "I was thrilled."

In 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 cited as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

One of her finest performances appeared in the production Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as 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