Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who passed away at 93 years old, was regarded as one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Although an extensive and respected career on stage and screen, her legacy will forever be linked as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to closely monitor her "stick insect" husband Basil - portrayed by John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been shouted at, totally ignored or, occasionally, throttled by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were components of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a humorous triumph.

And while numerous performers would have distanced themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales consistently voiced her pleasure in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

She belonged to a household profoundly passionate about the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, an ex-actress who'd abandoned her career for family life.

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

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

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to express this opinion.

At drama school, Scales was perceived as a junior character actor instead of an obvious Juliet.

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

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

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - more famous 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 Hobson's Choice, opposite Charles Laughton.

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a short appearance as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She additionally encountered colleague Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they got together, and wed in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about recentlyweds, the Starling couple.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The show proved hugely popular and ran for five years.

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

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of their comedy creation to the BBC.

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

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 first series, which debuted in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, as it continued, its comedic combination of ridiculous physical comedy and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

Initially, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about this approach.

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

In subsequent years, she frequently found herself, requested to portray "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired more glamorous roles.

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

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it helped get 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

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in television, comprising an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on audio broadcasts, notably the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which subsequently transferred to television, and Ladies of Letters, with Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of Woman's Hour.

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

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

"The response was automatic," she clarified. "I was thrilled."

In 1995, she started appearing as Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for the retail chain Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The advertising series, which ran for nine years, was cited as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid-nineties.

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

One of her finest performances appeared in the production Breaking the Code, the movie concerning the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She portrays Alan Turing's mother, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was