{"id":230704,"date":"2025-10-28T20:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/230704\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T20:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:03:08","slug":"john-cleese-shares-tribute-to-late-fawlty-towers-co-star-prunella-scales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/230704\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cleese shares tribute to late Fawlty Towers co-star Prunella Scales"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Cleese has paid tribute to his Fawlty Towers co-star Prunella Scales following her death at the age of 93<\/a>, describing her as \u201cabsolutely perfect\u201d.<\/p>\n

Scales<\/a> starred in the BBC comedy series as Sybil Fawlty, the acid-tongued wife of Basil Fawlty, played by Cleese.<\/p>\n

Cleese<\/a> said in a statement following the tragic news of her passing: \u201cHow very sad. Pru was a really wonderful comic actress. I\u2019ve recently been watching a number of clips of Fawlty Towers whilst researching a book. Scene after scene she was absolutely perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cShe was a very sweet lady, who spent a lot of her life apologising. I used to tease her about it. I was very, very fond of her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actress died \u201cpeacefully at home in London yesterday [Monday],\u201d having watched Fawlty Towers the day before, her sons Samuel and Joseph confirmed in a statement to the PA news agency on Tuesday (28th October).<\/p>\n

The statement continued: \u201cShe was 93. Although dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home. She 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

The statement concluded: “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

\"Actress<\/p>\n

Prunella Scales in Fawlty Towers.\u00a0Don Smith\/Radio Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n

This year marked 50 years<\/a> since Fawlty Towers first launched onto our screens.<\/p>\n

Downing Street also shared its condolences to Scales\u2019s family following her passing, with Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s official spokesperson saying: “Clearly Prunella Scales was part of a golden era for British comedy, someone whose talent was beamed into people\u2019s homes over many years and gave many people a huge amount of enjoyment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prime minister, of course, passes all his condolences to her family.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Over the course of her career, she also appeared as Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett’s A Question of Attribution, for which she received a BAFTA nomination.<\/p>\n

The actress also starred alongside her late husband Timothy West<\/a> in their own Channel 4 show Great Canal Journeys, which followed the pair as they journeyed across Europe, Egypt and India on narrowboats.<\/p>\n

The series was also notable for examining how the couple navigated Scales\u2019s struggles with dementia.<\/p>\n

Read more: Prunella Scales on Fawlty Towers and why TV sitcoms were her “least favourite form of work” | Radio Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Cleese has paid tribute to his Fawlty Towers co-star Prunella Scales following her death at the age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-230704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}