Prunella Scales, who played Sybil in British sitcom 'Fawlty Towers,' dies at 93

Actor Prunella Scales has died at 93

LONDON -- Actor Prunella Scales, best known as acid-tongued Sybil Fawlty in the classic British sitcom “Fawlty Towers,” has died, her children said Tuesday. She was 93 and had dementia.

Scales’ sons, Samuel and Joseph West, said she died “peacefully at home in London” on Monday.

“Although dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home,” her sons said. “She was watching ‘Fawlty Towers’ the day before she died.”

Scales’ career included early film roles in a 1952 version of “Pride and Prejudice” and the 1954 comedy “Hobson’s Choice,” followed by her TV breakthrough in the 1960s sitcom “Marriage Lines.”

In “Fawlty Towers” she played the exasperated wife of hapless Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, whose efforts to run a seaside hotel inevitably escalated into chaos. Only 12 episodes were made, in 1975 and 1979, but it is regularly cited as one of the funniest sitcoms of all time.

Later roles included Queen Elizabeth II in “A Question of Attribution,” Alan Bennett’s stage and TV drama about the queen’s art adviser, Anthony Blunt, who was also a Soviet spy. Scales played another British monarch in the one-woman stage show “An Evening with Queen Victoria.”

Scales was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013. Between 2014 and 2019, she and her husband, actor Timothy West, explored waterways in Britain and abroad in the gentle travel show “Great Canal Journeys.” The program was praised for the way it honestly depicted Scales’ dementia.

West died in November 2024. Scales is survived by her sons, stepdaughter Juliet West, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

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