British actress Prunella Scales, best known for playing Sybil Fawlty in beloved British television comedy Fawlty Towers, has died age 93, her sons have said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Sybil was the wife of John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty, in the show’s two series made in 1975 and 1979.<\/p>\n
Set in a dysfunctional hotel in the seaside resort of Torquay, it became one of Britain’s best-known comedies and was shown around the world.<\/p>\n
It continues to be broadcast and referenced in popular culture today.<\/p>\n
“Our darling mother Prunella Scales died peacefully at home in London yesterday,” the statement from her two sons said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“She was watching Fawlty Towers the day before she died.”<\/p>\n
Scales was married for 61 years to actor Timothy West, who died last November. She had been suffering from dementia.<\/p>\n
Fawlty Towers was named as the greatest ever British TV sitcom by the Radio Times magazine in 2019.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The cast of Fawlty Towers left to right: Connie Booth (Polly Sherman), John Cleese (Basil Fawlty), Prunella Scales (Sybil Fawlty) and Andrew Sachs (Manuel). (Supplied)<\/p>\n
It was developed into a theatre production in Australia in 2016, before moving to London’s West End in 2024.<\/p>\n
In the show, Sybil was often on the phone saying “Ooooh I knoooow”, her braying laugh described by Basil’s character as akin to “someone machine-gunning a seal”.<\/p>\n
Her seven-decade acting career included multiple roles from the 1950s, including in 1960s sitcom Marriage Lines.<\/p>\n
She starred in the 1992 Oscar-winning film Howards End alongside her son, actor Samuel West.<\/p>\n
In the 2010s, Scales and her husband travelled on their narrowboat in the Great Canal Journeys TV series.<\/p>\n
She was born in Surrey in 1932 and started her acting career at The Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n
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