Fawlty Towers star, Prunella Scales left more than £3 million in her will following her death last year.
Scales passed away peacefully at her home in October 2025. She had previously been diagnosed with dementia.
Now, records have revealed that the actress left a gross estate of £3,376,585, and a net value of £3,166,554, with her sons Samuel and Joseph and her stepdaughter Juliet the main beneficiaries. Her sons are to receive 40% of her estate, with her stepdaughter receiving 20%.
The probate, which was granted on 11 August this year, also saw Scales leave money to her goddaughters, along with charities The Snipe Charitable Trust, The Royal Horticultural Society, The Combined Theatrical Charities Appeals Council for The King George V Fund for Actors and The Campaign to Protect Rural England.
£10,000 is to go to the Snipe Charitable Trust, which helps to provide grants to charitable organisations and help in the education and training of young people in the arts. The combined Theatrical Charities Appeals Council are to receive £5,000, while the RHS and the Campaign to Protect Rural England will also receive £1,000.
Fawlty Towers, which ran for two series between 1975 and 1979, and often hailed as one of the greatest comedies of all time, saw Scales play Sybil Fawlty in the series, the long suffering wife of hotel owner, Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese.
Following her death, comedian John Cleese paid tribute to Scales.
"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 said. "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".
Announcing her death, Scales' sons revealed that she had been watching Fawlty Towers the day before she died.
Prunella Scales was married to fellow actor, Timothy West for 61 years. He passed away in November 2024.
The pair had filmed 10 series of the Channel 4 programme, Great Canal Journeys, where they travelled across the UK and other parts of the world, looking at different waterways. These shows, which finished in June 2019, also saw them talk candidly about Scales' vascular dementia diagnosis.
