Prunella Scales: From the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

The celebrated actress Prunella Scales, who died at 93 years old, was considered one of Britain's finest comic actors.

Despite a long and distinguished professional journey across theater and film, she will inevitably be remembered as the unforgettable Sybil Fawlty in the classic 1970s television series, Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to closely monitor her husband Basil described as a "stick insect" - played by comedian John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her friend, Audrey.

It fell to her to calm visitors who had been yelled at, completely overlooked or, in some cases, throttled by Basil when during his particularly frenzied episodes.

Her unforgettable cackle, gravity-defying hairdo and ferocious temper were components of a carefully constructed character that stands as a comic masterpiece.

And while numerous performers would have distanced themselves from too close an association with one particular character, Scales consistently voiced her pleasure in participating of the Fawlty Towers experience.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

It was a family deeply in love with theatrical arts - with her mother, Catherine Scales, a former actor who'd given it all up for family life.

Bright and bookish, following evacuation during the war to England's Lake District, Prunella studied at Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

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

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

During her theatrical training, Scales had been thought of as a developing character performer instead of a natural Juliet candidate.

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she subsequently informed her chronicler, "however I lacked conventional beauty and attracted no admirers."

Young Prunella concealed her middle-class roots, aware that directors were beginning to look for a new kind of earthy credibility in performers.

But she started picking up minor parts in plays, and, during preparations for a part at Worthing's Connaught Theatre, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel the Spanish server, in the famous series.

There was an early television appearance in 1952, as Lydia Bennet in a BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which included Peter Cushing - more famous for his horror film performances - as Mr Darcy.

And her first big screen roles came a year later - in lighthearted romance, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, opposite Charles Laughton.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, she maintained constant employment - performing across multiple mediums, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in the popular soap Coronation Street.

She also met fellow actor Timothy West.

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

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her major television opportunity arrived through Marriage Lines, a BBC sitcom about recentlyweds, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The program achieved great success and continued for five seasons.

Then came Fawlty Towers, which propelled her to iconic status.

John Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, had submitted the first script of Fawlty Towers to the BBC.

Performer Bridget Turner had been considered for Sybil Fawlty but she had turned it down and Scales tried out for the character.

She subsequently recalled that Cleese maintained high standards.

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

Merely twelve installments were ever made.

The first series, which debuted in 1975, didn't immediately attract massive viewership but, as it continued, its hilarious mix of absurd pratfalls and awkward circumstances grew in popularity.

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

Initially, 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."

In subsequent years, she was, all too often, requested to portray stern matriarchs when she hankered after more glamorous roles.

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

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "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, comprising a stint as the frumpy Elizabeth Mapp in the series Mapp and Lucia.

Her voice was also regularly heard on radio, particularly the comedy program After Henry, 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 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 admitted that when Scales appeared, he stood up.

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

During 1995, she began starring 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 identified as the biggest factor in establishing its dominant market position in the mid-nineties.

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

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

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

Beyond performance, {Scales was