Prunella Scales, best known for Faulty Towers, has died at 93, a year after her husband of sixty years, Timothy West. She worked constantly on stage, screen and radio from her late teens onwards until dementia halted her ten years ago. In recent times she appeared in Mapp and Lucia, as Queen Elizabeth in Alan Bennett’s A Question of Attribution, in Breaking the Code, about the Bletchley Park wartime codebreakers; and as Queen Victoria in a one-woman show that she performed 400 times. She also starred for nine years as Dotty Turnbull in a TV adverts for supermarket giant Tesco which was cited as the biggest factor in propelling it to market leadership in the mid 1990s. As her memory began to fade she made 10 series of Great Canal Journeys with her husband.
She was born 22 June 1932 10pm (unverified) Abinger, England, with an actress mother and won a scholarship to the Old Vic Theatre School to the consternation of her school headmistress who wanted her to go to Cambridge. Two years later, she secured a position as an assistant stage manager at Bristol Old Vic.
Fawlty Towers, the landmark series which propelled her to iconic status in the late 1970s oddly had only 12 episodes but has stood the test of time since. She later remembered that John Cleese was a hard taskmaster. “John, quite rightly, was extremely rigorous about learning the script, and if you didn’t, he could get quite cross, which was fair enough.”
Away from acting, she was a committed campaigner, serving as president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and a lifelong Labour Party supporter
She is survived by two sons and one stepdaughter, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
She had a hard-working and creative 6th house Sun and Venus Mercury in Cancer with an Aquarius Moon opposition an 8th house Jupiter. She was an odd mix of Water from her Cancer planets including Pluto in Cancer in her 7th and Air with her Moon plus Saturn in Aquarius and Mars in Gemini so she would wobble between feeling and thinking. She was part of the Uranus square Pluto generation who lived through turbulent times growing up which would leave her politically rebellious. Her Uranus was also in an adventurous trine to Jupiter. But what marks her chart is a yod of Neptune sextile Sun inconjunct Saturn which would put her on a singular path in life requiring self-discipline and maturity to make it work well.
Oddly John Cleese, 27 October 1939 3.15 am Weston-Super-Mare, England, also has a Saturnine yod inconjunct Neptune sextile Mercury. And like Prunella his intense Scorpio Sun sits awkwardly with his Aries Moon. She was Water Air and he is Water Fire. His Pluto sat almost exactly opposite her focal point Saturn so he would be a challenging partner. His Moon was conjunct her Uranus and square her Pluto which would also cause a few emotional cross currents. Though his can-be-charming Venus sat on her Midheaven with his Mercury in her 10th so it was a good career combination for a while.
When Fawlty Towers first aired in September 1975 tr Jupiter was conjunct her Uranus, trine her Jupiter and square her Pluto for success and a surge of confidence.
For Timothy West see previous post November 13 2024.
I loved Fawlty Towers, and pretty much anything Prunella did. I offer my condolences to the West family. What a wonderful couple they made! And now they are making the eternal canal journey together. Which is very fitting.
The 80s version of Mapp & Lucia is great too. (With Geraldine McKewan and Nigel Hawthorne). She’s wonderful and very funny as Miss Mapp!