Prunella Scales

Prunella Scales was an English actress who began her career in 1951 in stage management at the Bristol Old Vic and became known for comic roles. Born in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, she was the daughter of an actress and trained at the Old Vic Theatre School before taking her mother's maiden name as a stage name. Her break came in the early 1960s sitcom Marriage Lines, opposite Richard Briers, and she played her most famous part, Sybil Fawlty, in Fawlty Towers across two series in 1975 and 1979. Her films included Hobson's Choice (1954), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), The Wicked Lady (1983), The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), A Chorus of Disapproval (1989), Howards End (1992), Wolf (1994) and Horrid Henry: The Movie (2011). She portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution, earning a BAFTA nomination, and was appointed a CBE in 1992.