Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who died at the age of 93, was considered one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Despite an extensive and respected professional journey across theater and film, her legacy will forever be linked as Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to keep tabs on her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by comedian John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her to placate guests who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and intense anger were part of a carefully constructed character that ranks as a humorous triumph.

And while numerous performers would have removed themselves from too close an association with a single role, Scales always expressed her delight in having been part of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

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

Bright and bookish, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she earned a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - after two years - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This decision angered of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

At drama school, 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 middle-class roots, conscious that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in their actors.

Nevertheless she began acquiring small roles in theatrical productions, and, during preparations for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she encountered Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

Her initial television exposure occurred in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - more famous 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, opposite Charles Laughton.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - 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 fellow actor Timothy West.

Following what she characterized as "a gentle courtship involving crosswords and candies", they got together, and married in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

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

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The program achieved great success and ran for five years.

Then came Fawlty Towers, which elevated her to cultural icon.

John Cleese and his spouse at the time, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the broadcasting corporation.

Actress Bridget Turner had been approached to play the Sybil role but she had turned it down and Scales auditioned for the role.

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 ever made.

The first series, which aired 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 thought hard about portraying Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her social background had to be inferior to Basil's social standing.

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

"Once they heard the first reading in rehearsal," Scales remembered, "they embraced the concept completely."

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she desired more glamorous roles.

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

"The role presented challenges," she maintained, "but I'm still proud of it." She believed it assisted in bringing the paying public 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, including a stint as character 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 the series Ladies of Letters, with actress 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 A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

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

"It was a knee-jerk reaction," she clarified. "I was thrilled."

During 1995, she started appearing as character Dotty Turnbull in television commercials for supermarket giant Tesco - which compensated her partially with shopping credits.

The advertising series, which continued for nine years, was identified as the primary reason in propelling it to market leadership in the mid-nineties.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her area of London.

Among her most accomplished roles came in Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who represents a culture that criminalized same-sex relationships, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was