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Her movie credits encompass such efforts as Hobson's Choice (1954), The Boys From Brazil (1978), Howard's End (1992) and a little more recently, An Awfully Big Adventure (1995).
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She is a supporter of the Labour Party, and appeared on a Labour party political broadcast during the 2005 UK general election campaign.
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Both she and her husband are ambassadors for SOS Children's Charity.
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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.
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She very nearly got the role of "Eth" in The Glums, part of Take It From Here, written by Frank Muir and Dennis Norden, but was narrowly beaten by June Whitfield.
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She has had major roles in BBC Radio 4 sitcoms, most notably After Henry, Smelling of Roses and Ladies of Letters, and on TV she starred in the LWT/Channel 4 series Mapp & Lucia, which was based on the bestselling novels by E. F. Benson.
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Her first big break came with the early 1960s sitcom Marriage Lines in which she starred opposite Richard Briers.
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She's fronting a British TV advertising campaign for Tesco as a fussy mother alongside her long-suffering daughter played by TV comedienne and actress Jane Horrocks.
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She is 5'3½" (1.61 m) tall.
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Her birth name is Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth.
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She's a British classical stage actress trained at both the Old Vic Theatre School in London and the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York.
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Married to Timothy West since 1963.
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Mother of actor Samuel West and Joe West.
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She achieved her greatest success on TV as Sybil Fawlty on the classic John Cleese comedy "Fawlty Towers."
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She has a step-daughter named Juliet West.
