PrunellaSCALES Actress Prunella Scales, best known for her role as Sybil in Fawlty Towers, has died at the age of 93. The much-loved actress was married to her husband, fellow actor Timothy West, for six decades before his death last November.
Prunella was one of the most successful and popular comedy actresses of her generation. She achieved worldwide fame and recognition as Sybil, Basil Fawlty's long-suffering wife, in the memorable TV series Fawlty Towers.
But although she was regularly cast in comic roles, her abilities ranged far more widely than that – she even appeared in opera.
Scales also played Queen Elizabeth II in the British film A Question of Attribution and appeared in a one-woman show called An Evening with Queen Victoria.
But she will be remembered most of all for her role in “partnership” with John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, often regarded as the most hilarious comedy series ever shown on television.
Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth was born on June 22, 1932 and attended Moira House Girls’ School in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Her early work, during a long career, included parts in the second UK adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1952) and Hobson’s Choice (1954).
Her career break came with the early 1960s sitcom Marriage Lines, in which she starred opposite Richard Briers. She also had roles in BBC Radio 4 sitcoms, notably After Henry, Smelling Of Roses, and Ladies Of Letters. On television, she starred in the London Weekend/Channel 4 series Mapp & Lucia, based on the novels by EF Benson.
She played Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett’s A Question of Attribution. And in 1973, Scales teamed up with Ronnie Barker in the series called Seven Of One, also for the BBC.
After several film appearances, in 2003 Scales appeared as Hilda, the “she who must be obeyed” wife of Horace Rumpole, in four BBC Radio 4 plays. Her real-life husband, Timothy West, played her fictional husband.
Scales and West subsequently toured Australia at the same time in different productions.
Scales appeared in a one-woman show called An Evening With Queen Victoria, which also featured the tenor Ian Partridge singing songs written by Prince Albert.
Also in that year, she voiced the role of Magpie, the eponymous thief in a recording of Gioachino Rossini’s opera semi-seria in two acts, La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie), in which a servant girl is condemned to death for the theft of a silver spoon snatched by a magpie presumably decorating its nest to lure a mate. Her part in the melodrama was tiny but memorable: she neither sang nor spoke, but merely cawed.
In 2006, she appeared alongside Academy Award winners Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell in the mini-series The Shell Seekers.
The following year, Scales appeared in Children in Need, reprising her role as Sybil Fawlty, the new manager who wants to take over Hotel Babylon. She also appeared in the audio play The Youth of Old Age, produced in 2008, and in a production of Carrie’s War, the Nina Bawden novel, at the Apollo Theatre in 2009.
Scales was a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party and appeared on its political broadcasts during the 2005 and 2010 general election campaigns. She was also an ambassador of SOS Children’s Villages, an international charity that provides homes and mothers for orphaned and abandoned children.
Scales married West in 1963 and had two sons, the elder of whom was the actor and director Samuel West, and a stepdaughter, Juliet.
Our thoughts are with Prunella's family and friends at this sad time. We invite you to pay tribute to Prunella below.
* Credit Mirror.co.uk for the image and story.
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