1. Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales is an English retired actress.
37 Facts About Prunella Scales
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Prunella Scales portrayed Sybil Fawlty, the bossy wife of Basil Fawlty, in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers and Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution, for which she was nominated for a British Academy Television Award.
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Prunella Scales was twice nominated at the Laurence Olivier Awards, in 1980 for Make and Break and in 1990 for Single Spies.
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Prunella Scales had a younger brother, Timothy "Timmo" Illingworth, who became a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Irish Rangers and was appointed an OBE.
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In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, Prunella Scales's parents moved with their children to Bucks Mills near Bideford in Devon.
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In 1942, Prunella Scales was awarded a scholarship to Moira House School which had been evacuated from Eastbourne to a hotel on Lake Windermere in the Lake District Cumbria; her mother and brother accompanied her.
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Prunella Scales carried on her schooling when Moira House returned to Eastbourne.
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Prunella Scales was awarded a scholarship for the two year course at the Old Vic Theatre School in 1949; Moira House School had wished her to apply to Oxbridge.
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Prunella Scales started her career in 1951 as an assistant stage manager at the Bristol Old Vic, but has stated that she has always wanted to be an actor.
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Prunella Scales played her most famous role, Sybil Fawlty in the sitcom Fawlty Towers, over two series in 1975 and 1979.
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In 1973, Prunella Scales was cast with Ronnie Barker in One Man's Meat which formed part of Barker's Seven of One series, for the BBC.
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For 10 years, Prunella Scales appeared as "Dotty" Turnbull, together with Jane Horrocks as her character's daughter, Kate Neall, in advertisements for UK supermarket chain Tesco.
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Prunella Scales played Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution.
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In 1996, Prunella Scales starred in the television film Lord of Misrule, alongside Richard Wilson, Emily Mortimer and Stephen Moyer.
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In 1997, Prunella Scales starred in Chris Barfoot's science-fiction film short Phoenix which was first aired in 1999 by NBCUniversal's Sci-Fi Channel.
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Prunella Scales played The Client, an evil government minister funding inter-genetic time travel experiments.
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In 1993, Prunella Scales voiced Mrs Tiggy-Winkle in The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends.
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In 2000, Prunella Scales appeared in the film The Ghost of Greville Lodge as Sarah.
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Prunella Scales appeared in a one-woman show called An Evening with Queen Victoria, which featured the tenor Ian Partridge singing songs written by Prince Albert.
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Prunella Scales has performed An Evening with Queen Victoria more than 400 times, in theatres around the world, over the course of 30 years.
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Prunella Scales voiced the speaking role of Magpie, the eponymous thief in a 2003 recording of Gioachino Rossini's opera La gazza ladra.
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In 2006, Prunella Scales appeared alongside Academy Award winners Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell in the mini-series The Shell Seekers.
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On 16 November 2007, Prunella Scales appeared in Children in Need, reprising her role as Sybil Fawlty, the new manager who wants to take over Hotel Babylon.
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Prunella Scales appeared in the audio play The Youth of Old Age, produced in 2008 by the Wireless Theatre Company, and available to download free of charge on their website.
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Prunella Scales appeared in a production of Carrie's War, the Nina Bawden novel, at the West End Apollo Theatre in 2009.
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Prunella Scales starred in the 2011 British live-action 3D family comedy film Horrid Henry: The Movie as the titular character's Great Aunt Greta.
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Prunella Scales starred in a short film called "Stranger Danger" alongside Roderick Cowie in 2012.
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Alongside her husband, Prunella Scales appeared in Great Canal Journeys for Channel 4 from 2014 for 10 series, before her deteriorating health brought her television career to an end.
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In 1992, Prunella Scales appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, a programme where guests are asked to decide which one book, luxury item, and eight audio recordings they would want with them should they be stranded on a deserted island.
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Prunella Scales's chosen books were the Complete Works of Shakespeare in German, the Bible in Russian and a Russian dictionary; her luxury item was "a huge tapestry kit".
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Prunella Scales is a patron of the Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham.
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Prunella Scales was married to the actor Timothy West from 1963 until his death in 2024.
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From 1997 until 2002, Prunella Scales was president of CPRE, at that time known as the Council for the Protection of Rural England.
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Prunella Scales was eventually diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2014.
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Prunella Scales's declining health led the couple to leave the series in 2019.
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In 1999, Prunella Scales was awarded the Freedom of the City of London.
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Prunella Scales was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1992 Birthday Honours List; her husband had received the same honour in the 1984 Birthday Honours List.