The Legendary Prunella Scales: From Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who passed away at the age of 93, was regarded as 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 classic 1970s television series, the beloved Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - portrayed by John Cleese - between telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been shouted at, completely overlooked or, occasionally, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and intense anger were part of a carefully constructed character that stands as a comic masterpiece.

And while many actors 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

Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born near Guildford on 22 June 1932.

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

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

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - two years later - 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 sent correspondence to the theater to tell them so.

At drama school, Scales was perceived as a developing character performer rather than an obvious Juliet.

"Everyone aspired to resemble Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

Young Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, aware 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 the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she encountered actor Andrew Sachs, who would later star as Manuel the Spanish server, in Fawlty Towers.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which included actor Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

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

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, including a short appearance as a bus conductor, character Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

After what Prunella described as "a mild Times crossword and Polo mints flirtation", they became a couple, and married in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

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

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

Then came 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.

Performer 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 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 ever made.

The initial season, which debuted in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, as it continued, 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 inferior to Basil's social standing.

Initially, the creators had doubts regarding this approach.

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

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

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

"It was a tough job," she insisted, "yet I remain proud of my work." She even thought it assisted in bringing audience members into theaters.

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in television, including an engagement as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

Her vocal talents were frequently featured on audio broadcasts, particularly the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, which later transitioned to TV, and Ladies of Letters, with actress Patricia Routledge, which became an intrinsic part of the program Woman's Hour.

Scales performed two significant royal characters; as Queen Elizabeth in the BBC production of Alan Bennett's work, and as Queen Victoria in a solo performance that she performed 400 times.

She once received a letter from a royal protection officer who confessed that when Scales appeared, he rose to his feet.

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

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

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

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for taking part in the Tesco adverts, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her London community.

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

She appears as the mother of Alan Turing, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, an attitude that eventually led to his death.

Beyond performance, {Scales was