Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales CBE ( born June 22, 1932 in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, as Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth ) is a British actress. She is best known for her role of Sybil Fawlty in the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers.
Life
Scales was born in 1932 in Sutton Abinger. Her father worked for a cotton company, her mother was an actress. Scales appeared in about eighty films and television series, often in comedic roles. Your first television appearance was in 1952 in an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice as Lydia Bennet. In 1954, she starred in one of her first movies master of the house, I am the daughter of Charles Laughton, directed by David Lean. She also had an appearance in Coronation Street, the most successful television series in the UK.
The breakthrough as an actress she managed in the early 1960s in the sitcom Marriage Lines with Richard Briers as a partner. Larger roles in BBC Radio 4 and Channel 4 followed. In 1975, she was cast as Sybil Fawlty in the television series Fawlty Towers, where she played the wife of owner Basil Fawlty ( John Cleese ). Her subsequent roles include an appearance in Howards End by director James Ivory.
She is married to actor Timothy West. The older of her two sons is the actor and director Samuel West. She is an ambassador for SOS Children's Charity and active supporter of the Labour Party. In 2005, her authorized biography Prunella, written by Teresa Ransom appeared.
Theater
Scales has trained as a theater actress at the Old Vic Theatre in London and at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York City. In 2004, she toured with her one -woman show An Evening with Queen Victoria.
For her many theatrical roles she received the 2001 Patricia Rothermere Award.