Prunella Scales: Beginning with Fawlty Towers to Great Canal Journeys

Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

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

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

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been yelled at, completely overlooked or, in some cases, physically confronted by Basil when in one of his more manic moods.

Her unforgettable cackle, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were components of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a humorous triumph.

And while many actors would have distanced themselves from excessive identification with one particular character, Scales always expressed her delight in participating of the Fawlty Towers phenomenon.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

She belonged to a household deeply in love with the theatre - her mother being, Bim Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up for marriage and children.

Intelligent and studious, after wartime evacuation to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House Girls School in the coastal town of Eastbourne.

During 1949, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Old Vic drama school and - after two years - secured a position as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her previous school principal in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge University and sent correspondence to the theater to tell them so.

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

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

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

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

Her initial television exposure occurred in the year 1952, as the character Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which featured 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.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - appearing on stage, film and television, featuring a brief stint 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 became a couple, and married in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her major television opportunity arrived through the series Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about a newly married couple, the Starling couple.

Scales performed alongside actor 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 propelled her to iconic status.

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

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

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, failed to win huge audiences but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and embarrassing situations increased in appeal.

Scales thought hard about how to play Sybil Fawlty, and decided that her character's upbringing had to be below Basil's social standing.

At first, John Cleese and his wife had doubts regarding this approach.

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

Later in her career, she frequently found herself, called upon to play "dragons" and "old bags" when she desired elegant characters.

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

"The role presented challenges," she insisted, "but I'm still proud of it." She even thought 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

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

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

Scales performed at two major royal roles; as Queen Elizabeth II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she presented four hundred times.

She once received a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth's security men who confessed that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

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

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

The campaign, which continued for nine years, was identified as the primary reason in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s.

Scales subsequently faced moderate critique for participating in the commercial campaign, when she backed a campaign to stop local shops closing in her London community.

One of her finest performances appeared in Breaking the Code, the film about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers.

She appears as 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