Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales (née Illingworth; born 22 June 1932) is a retired English actor. She portrayed Sybil Fawlty, the bossy wife of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers, Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution (Screen One, BBC 1991) by Alan Bennett (for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award) and appeared in the documentary series Great Canal Journeys (2014–2021), travelling on canal barges and narrowboats with her husband, fellow actor Timothy West.
Early life
Scales was born in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, the daughter of Catherine (née Scales), an actress, and John Richardson Illingworth, a cotton salesman. Scales had a younger brother, Timothy "Timmo" Illingworth (1934–2017).
In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, Scales's parents moved with their children to Bucks Mills near Bideford in Devon. In 1942 Scales was awarded a scholarship to Moira House School which had been evacuated from Eastbourne to a hotel on Lake Windermere in Lancashire; her mother and brother accompanied her. Scales carried on her schooling when Moira House returned to Eastbourne. She was awarded a scholarship for the two year course at The Old Vic School in 1949; Moira House School had wished her to apply to Oxbridge.
Career
Early works and career break
Scales started her career in 1951 as an assistant stage manager at the Bristol Old Vic. But she has stated "I have always wanted to be an actor". Throughout her career, she has often been cast in comic roles. Her early work included the (now believed to be lost) second UK adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1952), Laxdale Hall (1953), Hobson's Choice (1954), Room at the Top (1959) and Waltz of the Toreadors (1962).
Her career break came with the early 1960s sitcom Marriage Lines starring opposite Richard Briers. She played her most famous role, Sybil Fawlty in the sitcom Fawlty Towers, over two series in 1975 and 1979. In addition to this, she has had roles in BBC Radio 4 sitcoms, and comedy series including After Henry, Smelling of Roses and Ladies of Letters; on television she starred in the London Weekend Television/Channel 4 series Mapp & Lucia based on the novels by E. F. Benson. She played Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution.
In 1973, Scales was cast with Ronnie Barker in One Man's Meat which formed part of Barker's Seven of One series, also for the BBC. Her later film appearances include Escape from the Dark (1976), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), The Boys From Brazil (1978), The Wicked Lady (1983), The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), Consuming Passions (1988), A Chorus of Disapproval (1989), Howards End (1992), Wolf (1994), An Awfully Big Adventure (1995) and Stiff Upper Lips (1997). For the BBC Television Shakespeare production of The Merry Wives of Windsor (1982) she played Mistress Page and in the Theatre Night series (BBC) she appeared with her husband Timothy West in the Joe Orton farce What the Butler Saw (1987) playing Mrs Prentice.
1990s and onwards
For ten years, Scales appeared as "Dotty" Turnbull, together with Jane Horrocks as her character's daughter, Kate Neall, in advertisements for UK supermarket chain Tesco. In 1996, Scales starred in the television film Lord of Misrule, alongside Richard Wilson, Emily Mortimer and Stephen Moyer. The film was directed by Guy Jenkins and filming took place in Fowey in Cornwall. The same year, she appeared as Miss Bates in Jane Austen's Emma. In 1997, Scales starred in Chris Barfoot's science-fiction film short Phoenix which was first aired in 1999 by NBCUniversal's Sci-Fi Channel. Scales played The Client, an evil government minister funding inter-genetic time travel experiments. The same year, she played Minny Stinkler in the comedy film Mad Cows, directed by Sara Sugarman. In 1993 Scales voiced Mrs Tiggy-Winkle in The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends.
In 2000, Scales appeared in the film The Ghost of Greville Lodge as Sarah. The same year, she appeared as Eleanor Bunsall in Midsomer Murders "Beyond the Grave". In 2001, she appeared in two episodes of Silent Witness "Faith" as Mrs Parker. In 2003, she appeared as Hilda, "she who must be obeyed", wife of Horace Rumpole, in four BBC Radio 4 plays, with Timothy West playing her fictional husband. Scales and West 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. Scales has performed An Evening with Queen Victoria more than 400 times, in theatres around the world, over the course of 30 years.