Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was considered one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Despite a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission throughout her existence to closely monitor her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by John Cleese - between cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, occasionally, physically confronted by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were components of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a humorous triumph.

Although many actors would have removed themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

It was a family profoundly passionate about theatrical arts - her mother being, Catherine 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 Girls School in Eastbourne.

In 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - after two years - obtained a role as an assistant stage manager.

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

During her theatrical training, Scales was perceived as a junior character actor rather than an obvious Juliet.

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

The youthful Prunella concealed her privileged background, conscious that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in their actors.

Nevertheless she began acquiring minor parts in plays, and, during preparations for a part at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

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

Her initial film appearances followed the next year - in lighthearted romance, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including a short appearance as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

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

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

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

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular and continued for five seasons.

Then came the legendary Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

Performer Bridget Turner had been approached to play Sybil Fawlty but she declined the part and Scales auditioned for the role.

She later remembered 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."

Only 12 episodes were ultimately produced.

The first series, which debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

Scales carefully considered about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be inferior to her husband Basil's.

At first, John Cleese and his wife had doubts regarding this approach.

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

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she hankered after elegant characters.

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

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "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 maintained her career in television, comprising a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard 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 Woman's Hour.

Scales appeared in two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch 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 explained. "The experience delighted me."

During 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the primary reason 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 backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in the production Breaking the Code, the film about World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

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