{"id":108360,"date":"2025-10-28T12:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/108360\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T12:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:16:08","slug":"fawlty-towers-actress-prunella-scales-dies-aged-93-family-announces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/108360\/","title":{"rendered":"Fawlty Towers actress Prunella Scales dies aged 93, family announces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prunella Scales, best known for her role as Sybil in Fawlty Towers, has died at the age of 93, her family has said.<\/p>\n

The actress died \u201cpeacefully at home in London yesterday\u201d, her sons Samuel and Joseph said.<\/p>\n

A statement to the PA news agency said: \u201cOur darling mother Prunella Scales died peacefully at home in London yesterday. She was 93.<\/p>\n

\"TimothyTimothy West and Prunella Scales in 2024 (PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was watching Fawlty Towers the day before she died.<\/p>\n

\u201cPru was married to Timothy West for 61 years. He died in November 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is survived by two sons and one stepdaughter, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her Fawlty Towers character, Sybil, was the long-suffering wife of Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, in a show that won the Bafta for best scripted comedy in 1976.<\/p>\n

This year marked 50 years since the comedy show first appeared on screens.<\/p>\n

Scales had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013.<\/p>\n

She also played Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett\u2019s A Question of Attribution and, in 1973, Scales teamed up with Ronnie Barker in the series Seven Of One, also for the BBC.<\/p>\n

Her husband Timothy West, who died in November 2024, starred in TV shows such as comedy drama Brass, sitcom Not Going Out and soaps Coronation Street and EastEnders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prunella Scales, best known for her role as Sybil in Fawlty Towers, has died at the age of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-108360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}