Star of Legendary Sitcom Dead at 93: RIP to Prunella Scales

Legendary British sitcom star Prunella Scales died Monday at age 93.

The Fawlty Towers actress, who is best known for playing hotel manager Sybil Fawlty in 1975 and 1979, died “peacefully at home in London yesterday,” according to a statement from her sons, Samuel and Joseph.

“Our darling mother Prunella Scales died peacefully at home in London yesterday. She was 93,” they told the PA News agency, as per the BBC. They continued of their mother, who was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013, “Although dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home.”

Scales’ sons noted that he was watching Fawlty Towers the day before she died. They added, “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.”

Scales’ husband, actor Timothy West, died in November 2024 at age 90. She is survived by two sons and one stepdaughter, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Following Scales’ death, John Cleese, who played Sybil’s husband Basil on Fawlty Towers, paid tribute to his on-screen wife as “a really wonderful comic actress.”

Cleese said in a statement, “How very sad. Pru was a really wonderful comic actress. I’ve recently been watching a number of clips of Fawlty Towers whilst researching a book. Scene after scene she was absolutely perfect.” He went on, “She 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.”

Scales first got her big break in the ’60s sitcom Marriage Lines, and she would go on to perform in numerous West End productions, including 1991’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which also featured her husband. Scales’ other credits include After Henry, The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne and Consuming Passions.

Later in life, Scales and West found unexpected success with Channel 4’s Great Canal Journeys, which featured the couple traversing different waterways.

“We didn’t start out thinking it was going to be an especially exciting performance for people to watch,” West said in an interview with the BBC in 2023.

West also opened up about navigating Scales’ dementia with his wife, telling the outlet at the time, “It has been something which we bear in mind all of the time, really. It’s just something you have to think of. People understand and are very helpful and sympathetic about it. …Somehow we have coped with it and Pru doesn’t really think about it.”

West confidently said that his relationship with his wife hadn’t “changed at all” since Scales’ diagnosis, adding, “I know that things are going to change a little bit, but it’s been a long time and we’ve managed pretty well, really. I don’t think we ever think, ‘Oh no.’”