Prunella Scales: Beginning with the Iconic Fawlty Towers to Remarkable Canal Adventures

Prunella Scales, who died at the age of 93, was regarded as among Britain's most brilliant comedic performers.

Despite 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, Fawlty Towers.

Sybil's primary objective throughout her existence to keep tabs on her "stick insect" husband Basil - portrayed by John Cleese - amid telephone chats fueled by cigarettes with her companion Audrey.

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

Her nightmarish laugh, extraordinary hairstyle and ferocious temper were part of a meticulously crafted persona that stands as a comic masterpiece.

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

Formative Years and Professional Start

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

It was a family deeply in love with 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 England's Lake District, Prunella attended Moira House educational institution in Eastbourne.

In 1949, she won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School and - two years later - obtained a role as a stage management assistant.

This was to the fury of her former headmistress in her hometown, who had wished she would seek admission to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.

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

"We all wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn," she later told her biographer, "but I wasn't attractive and nobody fancied me."

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 small roles in plays, and, while rehearsing for a role at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, she met actor Andrew Sachs, who would subsequently appear as Manuel, the Spanish waiter, in the famous series.

Her initial television exposure occurred in the year 1952, as 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 romantic comedy, Laxdale Hall, and David Lean's Hobson's Choice, alongside Charles Laughton.

Throughout the latter 1950s and early 1960s, she was rarely out of work - performing across multiple mediums, including a brief stint as a bus conductor, Eileen Hughes, in 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 married in 1963.

Breakthrough and Iconic Roles

Her big TV break came with Marriage Lines, a comedy program about a newly married couple, George and Kate Starling.

Scales appeared opposite actor Richard Briers, then one of the biggest stars in TV humor. The show proved hugely popular and ran for five years.

Subsequently arrived the legendary 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 broadcasting corporation.

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

She subsequently recalled 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."

Merely twelve installments were ever made.

The initial season, which debuted 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 decided that her character's upbringing had to be inferior to Basil's social standing.

At first, John Cleese and his wife were unsure about the treatment.

"After witnessing the initial read-through," Scales remembered, "they were sold on the idea."

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

But when asked about her career pinnacle, Scales had no hesitation in selecting Sybil Fawlty.

"It was a tough job," she maintained, "yet I remain proud of my work." She believed it assisted in bringing the paying public into theaters.

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

Subsequent Work and Private World

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

Her voice was also regularly heard 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 II in the television drama of Alan Bennett's work, and as the monarch Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she presented four hundred 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. "I was thrilled."

In 1995, she started appearing as Dotty Turnbull in a series of TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco - which paid her partly in vouchers.

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

Scales subsequently faced some gentle criticism for taking part in the commercial campaign, when she supported an initiative to stop local shops closing in her London community.

Among her most accomplished roles appeared in Breaking the Code, the film about World War II cryptanalysts.

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.

Beyond performance, {Scales was