The Legendary Prunella Scales: Beginning with the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

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

Although a long and distinguished career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked 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 - portrayed by John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were part of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a comic masterpiece.

Although many actors would have removed themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales always expressed her pleasure in having been part of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

She belonged to a household deeply in love with theatrical arts - with her mother, Catherine Scales, an ex-actress who'd given it all up for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

During 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 decision angered of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to tell them so.

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

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she later told her chronicler, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

The youthful Prunella concealed her privileged background, conscious that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

But she started picking up minor parts in theatrical productions, and, during preparations for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured actor Peter Cushing - better known for his roles in horror movies - as Mr. Darcy.

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

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - appearing on stage, film and television, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in Coronation Street.

She also met colleague Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they became a couple, and wed in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her major television opportunity came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

Scales performed alongside Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in TV humor. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Then came Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

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

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."

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 absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

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

Initially, the creators had doubts regarding the treatment.

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," recalled Scales, "they were sold on the idea."

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, called upon to play stern matriarchs when she desired elegant characters.

However when questioned about her career pinnacle, Scales immediately identified in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it assisted in bringing the paying public into performance venues.

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

Later Career and Personal Life

After Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in television, including a stint as the frumpy 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 Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales performed at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the television drama of Alan Bennett's work, and as Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

She obtained correspondence from a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

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

During 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 campaign, which ran for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid-nineties.

Scales later came in for some gentle criticism for participating in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning 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