Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was considered one of Britain's finest comic actors.

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

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

She was tasked 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 unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were part of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a humorous triumph.

And while numerous performers would have removed themselves from excessive identification with a single role, Scales always expressed her pleasure in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

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

Intelligent and studious, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - after two years - secured a position as an assistant stage manager.

This decision angered of her former headmistress in her hometown, 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 developing character performer instead of an obvious Juliet.

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

The youthful Prunella also hid her privileged background, conscious that directors were beginning to look for authentic working-class realism in their actors.

But she started picking up small roles in plays, and, while rehearsing for a part at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in the year 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.

Her initial film appearances came a year later - in lighthearted romance, the film 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 - performing across multiple mediums, featuring a short appearance as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered fellow actor Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they became a couple, and wed in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

Her big TV break arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The program achieved great success and continued for five seasons.

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

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

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

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 debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales thought hard about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and determined that her social background had to be below Basil's social standing.

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

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

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after elegant characters.

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

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought it helped get audience members into performance venues.

"I like to think that if the public have seen you in one thing they'll come and see you in another," she expressed.

Later Career and Personal Life

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in the television industry, comprising a stint as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, notably the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales performed two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter from a royal protection officer who confessed that when Scales came on stage, he stood up.

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

In 1995, she started appearing as Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for the retail chain Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

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

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning World War II cryptanalysts.

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that criminalized same-sex relationships, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Beyond performance, {Scales was