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Prunella Scales, actress who played Sybil on Fawlty Towers, age 93
- Thread starter FreddyE1977
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I shall pull out my DVD set of the series and rewatch it in her honor.
Trivia: While Prunella Scales played the wife of John Cleese's Basil Fawlty, it was Connie Booth, who co-wrote the series and played the harried waitress/maid/front desk relief character Polly Sherman, who was Cleese's actual wife at the time.
Booth is still with us, age 84; Cleese is also still alive, age 86.
Trivia: While Prunella Scales played the wife of John Cleese's Basil Fawlty, it was Connie Booth, who co-wrote the series and played the harried waitress/maid/front desk relief character Polly Sherman, who was Cleese's actual wife at the time.
Booth is still with us, age 84; Cleese is also still alive, age 86.
Yes In fact John Cleese this years spoke at opening night for the launch of Fawlty Towers: The Play. It's a theatrical production based on three popular Fawlty Towers episodes. Cleese also hosted a BBC special titled Fawlty Towers: 50 years. Cleese is still actively acting, and is currently in a role on an Apple+ series.
I think it was the all-time greatest sitcom ever produced. John Cleese and Connie Booth were absolutely genius.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
In my book, it was a tie with Yes Minister (and the sequel Yes Prime Minister).
But as long as we are discussing the show, I am reminded of an interview in which John Cleese gave his definition of Basil Fawlty as "a man who could do a bang-up job of running the hotel if it wasn't for the damned guests."
You gotta love that first name of hers...Prunella 😁 The only person I have ever heard of with that name.
The character of Basil Fawlty has to be the best comedic portrayal of a 'stressed out' individual ever performed. An absolutely brilliant actor!
The character of Basil Fawlty has to be the best comedic portrayal of a 'stressed out' individual ever performed. An absolutely brilliant actor!
You're right, and I think he actually said that in one of the episodes!
Apparently way back in the day, JC and the Python crew were staying at a hotel in Torquay. Cleese found the incredibly rude hotel manager so fascinating that he decided to stay an extra day to study him. (And of course the rest is history!)
Best embodied perhaps in that scene where his car stalls out at an intersection so he gets out, runs off-camera, comes back holding what appears to be a small tree and proceeds to give it "a good sound thrashing". 😆
And, of course, his car never starts and he runs all the way back to the hotel carrying what he thinks is a replacement duck from Andrés restaurant for the one that Manuel accidentally steps on or in depending how you want to look at it!
Post Fawlty Towers, John Cleese made a very funny movie with Jamie Lee Cutis called 'A 'Fish Called Wanda'.. Definitely recommend it, if you haven't seen it.
One of my favorite episodes is the one titled 'The Germans', where Basil finds himself accidentally acting inappropriately with his German guests, like when they walked in on him imitating Hitler marching and holding his finger under his nose for the Hitler moustache.
Article about John Cleese paying tribute to Prunella Scales.
www.the-independent.com
John Cleese remembers ‘perfect’ onscreen wife Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales played Sybil, the long-suffering wife of bumbling hotelier Basil Fawlty
www.the-independent.com
Yes you did, you invaded Poland. 😆
One of Cleese's funnier quotes recently was "well I've had a hip replaced, so they're all silly walks now."
I've heard it said Andrew Sachs was too.
I first saw the American version starring John Larroquette. People said the character who was supposed to be Manuel was terrible. When I saw the original Manuel I understood.
That series was called Payne...and according to Wikipedia.... it was the third unsuccessful attempt by American television producers to adapt and transplant a version of Fawlty Towers to the United States. The first one, developed in 1978, is a 30-minute sitcom costarring Harvey Korman and Betty White. Titled Snavely and directed by Hal Cooper, that production never progressed beyond the completion of a pilot. The second series, Amanda's starring Bea Arthur, was broadcast in 1983 on ABC and lasted 10 episodes before it was cancelled.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I presume that was a response to some side tangent from @vchimpanzee (who I will not unignore just to read) so this might or might not be really on-topic, but Kat's response did trigger a thought about the many failed attempts to translate successful Britcoms to American television.
I saw that terrible John Larroquette version. All I could see was an echo of Dan Fielding on Night Court. I never (thankfully, it appears) saw the Bea Arthur series. Korman and White might have been the best chance at replicating the Fawlty Towers formula; it's something of a shame that ABC didn't choose it and instead later chose the Arthur show.
Comparing that to Yes Minister, I note that we never attempted a version, although several other countries adapted the concept, notably Israel, whose version (Polishuk) lasted three seasons. I have a theory about why that was not tried here, and I think my friend, the late Doug Drigot (who was news director at KVEN/Ventura in their news-talk days, when I was programming cross-town AC KAAP-AM/FM) nailed it. He said that there was no way of creating an equivalent of the "Ministry of Administrative Affairs" because under our form of government it would translate as the "Department of Departmental Operations". That would only have been humourous* as a one-off joke.
Then I started thinking about the many Britcoms that did well here: Are You Being Served? and Keeping Up Appearances, to name the best examples, had significant cultural differences which, even if equivalents could be created, would dilute the feeling of the originals. (And don't get me started about such uniquely British comedies like The Last Of The Summer Wine.)
As the exceptions that prove the rule, look how different Sanford and Son was from Steptoe and Son, or All in the Family from Till Death Us Do Part. By the time those got on the air here, they bore little resemblance to the original series they were based on.
Maybe it's a good thing we stopped trying.
* - spelling intentional as being relevant to the discussion
Yep, Payne was a little less successful than Bea Arthur's Amanda's. 9 episodes compared to 10 for the latter. I do like the characters name of 'Royal Payne'. And if the series had made it to a second season, John Cleese was onboard to do a recurring role as a competing hotelier.I presume that was a response to some side tangent from @vchimpanzee (who I will not unignore just to read) so this might or might not be really on-topic, but Kat's response did trigger a thought about the many failed attempts to translate successful Britcoms to American television.
I saw that terrible John Larroquette version. All I could see was an echo of Dan Fielding on Night Court. I never (thankfully, it appears) saw the Bea Arthur series. Korman and White might have been the best chance at replicating the Fawlty Towers formula; it's something of a shame that ABC didn't choose it and instead later chose the Arthur show.
Comparing that to Yes Minister, I note that we never attempted a version, although several other countries adapted the concept, notably Israel, whose version (Polishuk) lasted three seasons. I have a theory about why that was not tried here, and I think my friend, the late Doug Drigot (who was news director at KVEN/Ventura in their news-talk days, when I was programming cross-town AC KAAP-AM/FM) nailed it. He said that there was no way of creating an equivalent of the "Ministry of Administrative Affairs" because under our form of government it would translate as the "Department of Departmental Operations". That would only have been humourous* as a one-off joke.
Then I started thinking about the many Britcoms that did well here: Are You Being Served? and Keeping Up Appearances, to name the best examples, had significant cultural differences which, even if equivalents could be created, would dilute the feeling of the originals. (And don't get me started about such uniquely British comedies like The Last Of The Summer Wine.)
As the exceptions that prove the rule, look how different Sanford and Son was from Steptoe and Son, or All in the Family from Till Death Us Do Part. By the time those got on the air here, they bore little resemblance to the original series they were based on.
Maybe it's a good thing we stopped trying.
* - spelling intentional as being relevant to the discussion
I've never seen either. Will lookup episodes on YouTube when I get a chance.
Don’t mention the war!