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 one of Britain's finest comedic performers.

Although a long and distinguished professional journey across theater and film, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the 1970s TV comedy, Fawlty Towers.

It was Sybil's mission in life to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by John Cleese - amid cigarette-fuelled phone conversations with her companion Audrey.

She was tasked to placate guests who had been yelled at, totally ignored or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her nightmarish laugh, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were part of a meticulously crafted persona that ranks as a comic masterpiece.

And while numerous performers would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales always expressed her pleasure 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 in the Guildford area on June 22nd, 1932.

It was a family profoundly passionate about theatrical arts - her mother being, Catherine Scales, a former actor who'd abandoned her career for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, following evacuation during the war to the Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School 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 an assistant stage manager.

This decision angered of her former headmistress in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to express this opinion.

During her theatrical training, Scales was perceived as a developing character performer rather than an obvious Juliet.

"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 also hid her privileged background, conscious that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in their actors.

But she started picking up minor parts in theatrical productions, and, while rehearsing for a role at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in the famous series.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, which featured Peter Cushing - better known for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

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

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a brief stint 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 got together, and wed in 1963.

Career Milestones and Defining Characters

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

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, at that time a major celebrity in television comedy. The show proved hugely popular 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 presented the initial screenplay of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

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

She later remembered that Cleese was a hard taskmaster.

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

Merely twelve installments were ever made.

The initial season, which aired in 1975, failed to win huge audiences but, with subsequent episodes, its comedic combination of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances increased in appeal.

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

Initially, the creators were unsure about the treatment.

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

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, called upon to play stern matriarchs when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

However when questioned about what she thought was the high point, Scales immediately identified in selecting 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.

Later Career and Personal Life

Following Fawlty Towers, Scales maintained her career in television, comprising a stint as character Elizabeth Mapp in ITV's Mapp and Lucia.

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

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

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

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

The campaign, which continued for nine years, was cited as the primary reason in establishing its dominant market position in the mid 1990s.

Scales later came in for moderate critique for participating in the commercial campaign, when she supported an initiative to prevent neighborhood store closures in her area of London.

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

She appears as Alan Turing's mother, who embodies a society that treated homosexual acts as a crime, a perspective that contributed to his tragic end.

Away from acting, {Scales was