Prunella Scales: From the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

Although a long and distinguished professional journey across theater and film, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, Fawlty Towers.

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

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been yelled at, completely overlooked or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a humorous triumph.

Although numerous performers would have removed themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

The actress born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born in the Guildford area on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This decision angered of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer instead of a natural Juliet candidate.

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

The youthful Prunella also hid her middle-class roots, conscious that producers started seeking authentic working-class realism in performers.

But she started picking up small roles in theatrical productions, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in the famous series.

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, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's production Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, including a brief stint as transport worker, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular and continued for five seasons.

Then came 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 BBC.

Performer Bridget Turner had been approached to play Sybil Fawlty but she had turned it down and Scales tried out for the character.

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."

Merely twelve installments were ultimately produced.

The initial season, which aired 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 carefully considered about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be inferior to her husband Basil's.

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

"After witnessing the initial read-through," Scales remembered, "they embraced the concept completely."

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

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

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

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, particularly the comedy program After Henry, which later transitioned to TV, and the series Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of 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 performed 400 times.

She once received a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who admitted that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

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

In 1995, she began starring 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 biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for taking part in the commercial campaign, 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 film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

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

Away from acting, {Scales was