Prunella Scales

Acting 97 credits

Birthday

Jun 22, 1932

Day of Death

Oct 27, 2025 (93 years)

Place of Birth

Sutton Abinger, Surrey, England, UK

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.

Prunella Scales

Biography

Movies (64)

The Boys from Brazil

Sub Rosa

Howards End

Communicators From Hell

Emma

Wolf

The Tale of Little Pig Robinson

Fair Game

Consuming Passions

Horrid Henry: The Movie

Hobson's Choice

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Station Jim

An Awfully Big Adventure

Mad Cows

Room at the Top

Run For Your Wife

Natural Causes

TV Shows (33)

Midsomer Murders

Silent Witness

Casualty

Loose Women

BBC Play of the Month

Agatha Christie's Marple

Playhouse

Bergerac

An Audience with...

Dalziel & Pascoe

Fawlty Towers

Thirty-Minute Theatre

Never the Twain

Target

After Henry

Great Canal Journeys

Dennis the Menace and Gnasher

Mapp & Lucia