Prunella Scales, star of the hit British sitcom Fawlty Towers, has died “peacefully at home” aged 93, her family said.<\/p>\n
Scales played Sybil, the overbearing wife of hotel manager Basil Fawlty, in the classic British comedy.<\/p>\n
In a statement, her family told the PA News agency she had died in her London home on Monday.<\/p>\n
“Our darling mother Prunella Scales died peacefully at home in London yesterday. She was 93,” her two sons, Samuel and Joseph, said.<\/p>\n
“Although dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home.<\/p>\n
“We would like to thank all those who gave Pru such wonderful care at the end of her life: her last days were comfortable, contented and surrounded by love.”<\/p>\n
Scales’ death coincides with the 50th anniversary year of Fawlty Towers’ television debut, with her sons saying she had been watching the show the day before she died.<\/p>\n
Scales lost her husband of 61-years, actor Timothy West, in November last year.<\/p>\n
She is survived by her two sons and one stepdaughter, as well as seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n
While she was best known for her leading role Fawlty Towers, Sacles enjoyed an extensive career spanning film, television and radio.<\/p>\n
She received a BAFTA nomination for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett\u2019s A Question of Attribution in 1992 and hosted Channel 4 documentary Great Canal Journeys with her husband between 2014 and 2019.<\/p>\n
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease in 2013, Scales slowly withdrew from the public eye, bringing a close to her acting career as she continued to enjoy time with family and friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prunella Scales, star of the hit British sitcom Fawlty Towers, has died “peacefully at home” aged 93, her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134,146359,146358,146592],"class_list":{"0":"post-246834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-fawlty-towers","13":"tag-prunella-scales","14":"tag-timothy-west"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}