Prunella Scales

Prunella Scales (born June 22 1932) is an actress best known for her role as Sybil Fawlty in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers.

Prunella Scales has had a long and distinguished career as an actress, mostly in comic roles. Her first big break came with the early 1960s sitcom, Marriage Lines, in which she starred opposite Richard Briers.

She has had major roles in BBC Radio 4 sitcoms, most notably After Henry and Ladies of Letters.

More recently she has been seen in a series of Tesco supermarket commercials as a domineering mother with Jane Horrocks as her long-suffering daughter.

She is married to the British actor Timothy West, and their son is the actor Samuel West. In 2003 she appeared as Hilda, alias "she who must be obeyed", wife of Horace Rumpole in a series of four BBC Radio 4 plays, with her husband playing her fictional husband.

She and Timothy West are both ambassadors for SOS Children's Skid Row bass player Rachel Bolan in 1996. The band released only one album, Dressing Up the Idiot.