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Prunella Scales, who acted with John Cleese on the English sitcom “Fawlty Towers,” has died at 93.
THR reports that her sons said in a statement their mother died “peacefully at home in London.” She had been diagnosed with dementia in 2013 after exhibiting signs of it as far back as 2001.
Scales appeared in the acclaimed films “Room at the Top” (1959), “The Boys from Brazil” (1978), “Wolf” (1994), and “Howards End” (1992), but was far better known for her work on “Fawlty Towers.”
Incredibly, the show — which has been called the greatest British series of all time — only aired for two seasons, in 1975 and 1979.
On the show, Scales was exacting Sybil Fawlty and Cleese, the series’ co-creator and writer, was hapless Basil Fawlty, owners of a hotel based in Devon, England.
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Cleese remembered scales in a statement: “How very sad. Pru was a really wonderful comic actress. I’ve recently been watching a number of clips of ‘Fawlty Towers’ whilst researching a book. Scene after scene she was absolutely perfect. She was a very sweet lady who spent a lot of her life apologizing. I used to tease her about it. I was very, very fond of her.”
Born June 22, 1932, in Surrey, England, she worked in theater ahead of her TV debut in a 1952 BBC miniseries of “Pride and Prejudice, ” which has been lost.
She was also on the soap “Coronation Street” (1961), as well as the series “The Marriage Lines” (1961-1966), “Mr. Big” (1977), “Mapp & Lucia” (1985-1986), and “After Henry” (1988-1992), among many others.
Scales hosted the Channel 4 travelogue “Great Canal Journeys” from 2014-2017 with her husband since 1963, Timothy West, who died last year.
Scales is survived by her two sons, one of whom is actor Samuel West.
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