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

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was considered among Britain's most brilliant comic actors.

Despite an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - played by comedian John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

She was tasked to calm visitors who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

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

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

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

It was a family profoundly passionate about theatrical arts - her mother being, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella attended 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 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 and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

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

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

The youthful Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, aware that producers started seeking a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in theatrical productions, and, during preparations for a part at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in the famous series.

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

Her initial film appearances came a year later - in romantic comedy, the film Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, opposite the renowned Charles Laughton.

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including a short appearance as transport worker, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break arrived through Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales performed alongside Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The program achieved great success and continued for five seasons.

Subsequently arrived Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had presented the initial screenplay of their comedy creation to the BBC.

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

She subsequently recalled that Cleese was a hard taskmaster.

"John, appropriately, demanded strict script adherence, and failure to comply would understandably provoke his irritation."

Only 12 episodes were ever made.

The first series, 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 portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be below her husband Basil's.

Initially, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about the treatment.

"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 hankered after more glamorous roles.

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

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it helped get the paying public into theaters.

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

Later Career and Personal Life

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

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on radio, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which evolved into a staple of Woman's Hour.

Scales performed at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production 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 a royal protection officer who admitted that when Scales came on stage, he rose to his feet.

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

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

The campaign, which ran for nine years, was identified as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she backed a campaign to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

One of her finest performances came in Breaking the Code, the movie concerning World War II cryptanalysts.

She portrays the mother of Alan Turing, who represents a culture that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was