Known For
Acting
Born
Jun 22, 1932
Died
Oct 27, 2025
Place of Birth
Sutton Abinger, Surrey, England, UK
Credits
106 titles
Prunella Scales
Biography
Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales CBE (née Illingworth; 22 June 1932) was an English former actor, best known for playing Sybil Fawlty, wife of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers; for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution (Screen One, BBC 1991) by Alan Bennett (for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award); and for the documentary series Great Canal Journeys (2014–2021), in which she travels on canal barges and narrowboats with her husband, fellow actor Timothy West.
Known For
Filmography
The Cancellation Of Fawlty Towers
50 Years of BBC Two Comedy
Self
Great Canal Journeys
Self
Sub Rosa
Madame
The Phone Call
Joan
Run For Your Wife
Woman in Pub
Horrid Henry: The Movie
Great Aunt Greta
Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened
Self / Sybil Fawlty
The Shell Seekers
Dolly Keeling
Think
Customer
What the Pythons Did Next...
Self
Mr. Loveday's Little Outing
Lady Moping
Fawlty Towers Revisited
Herself
The Funny Blokes of British Comedy
Sybil Fawlty (archive footage) (uncredited)
Agatha Christie's Marple
Mrs Mackenzie
Looking for Victoria
Self / Victoria
The Royal
Red Admiral
Dickens
Elizabeth Dickens
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Grace
Station Jim
Queen Victoria
The Ghost of Greville Lodge
Sarah
Mad Cows
Dr. Minny Stinkler
Loose Women
Self
An Ideal Husband
Lady Markby
Stiff Upper Lips
Aunt Agnes
Keeping Mum
Marjorie
An Audience with Alf Garnett
Midsomer Murders
Eleanor Bunsall
Emma
Miss Bates
Breaking the Code
Sara Turing
Lord of Misrule
Shirley
Dennis the Menace and Gnasher
Mrs. Duffel
Dalziel and Pascoe
Edith Disney
Silent Witness
Anne Parker
The World of Lee Evans
Mother
Look at the State We're In!
Storyteller
An Awfully Big Adventure
Rose
Signs and Wonders
Elizabeth Palmore
Second Best
Margery
Wolf
Maude Waggins
Fair Game
Marjorie
The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends: The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Mr. Jeremy Fisher
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (voice)
The Rector's Wife
Marjorie Richardson
Freddie As F.R.O.7.
Queen (voice)
My Friend Walter
Aunt Ellie
Howards End
Aunt Juley
A Question of Attribution
H.M.Q.
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson
Fleecy Flock
Dirty Beasts
Narrator
Revolting Rhymes
Narrator