Downton Abbey – 10 Shocking Behind-the-Scenes Secrets!

The Butler ...

A butler is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its appearance. A butler is usually male, and in charge of male servants, while a housekeeper is usually a woman, and in charge of female servants. Traditionally, male servants (such as footmen) were rarer and therefore better paid and of higher status than female servants. The butler, as the senior male servant, has the highest servant status.
In modern houses where the butler is the most senior worker, titles such as majordomo, butler administrator, house manager, manservant, staff manager, chief of staff, staff captain, estate manager and head of household staff are sometimes given. The precise duties of the employee will vary to some extent in line with the title given, but perhaps more importantly in line with the requirements of the individual employer. In the grandest homes or when the employer owns more than one residence, there is sometimes an estate manager of higher rank than the butler.

The word "butler" comes from the Old French bouteleur (cup bearer), from bouteille (bottle), and ultimately from Latin. The role of the butler, for centuries, has been that of the chief steward of a household, the attendant entrusted with the care and serving of wine and other bottled beverages which in ancient times might have represented a considerable portion of the household's assets.In Britain, the butler was originally a middle-ranking member of the staff of a grand household. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the butler gradually became the senior, usually male, member of a household's staff in the very grandest households. However, there was sometimes a steward who ran the outside estate and financial affairs, rather than just the household, and who was senior to the butler in social status into the 19th century. Butlers used to always be attired in a special uniform, distinct from the livery of junior servants, but today a butler is more likely to wear a business suit or business casual clothing and appear in uniform only on special occasions.A Silverman or Silver Butler has expertise and professional knowledge of the management, secure storage, use and cleaning of all silverware, associated tableware and other paraphernalia for use at military and other special functions

Butlers were head of a strict service hierarchy and therein held a position of power and respect. They were more managerial than "hands on"—more so than serving, they officiated in service. For example, although the butler was at the door to greet and announce the arrival of a formal guest, the door was actually opened by a footman, who would receive the guest's hat and coat. Even though the butler helped his employer into his coat, this had been handed to him by a footman. However, even the highest-ranking butler would "pitch in" when necessary, such as during a staff shortage, to ensure that the household ran smoothly, although some evidence suggests this was so even during normal times.

The household itself was generally divided into areas of responsibility. The butler was in charge of the dining room, the wine cellar, pantry, and sometimes the entire main floor. Directly under the butler was the first footman (or head footman), who was also deputy butler or under-butler that would fill in as butler during the butler's illness or absence. The footman—there were frequently numerous young men in the role within a household—performed a range of duties including serving meals, attending doors, carrying or moving heavy items, and they often doubled as valets. Valets themselves performed a variety of personal duties for their employer. Butlers engaged and directed all these junior staff and each reported directly to him. The housekeeper was in charge of the house as a whole and its appearance. In a household without an official head housekeeper, female servants and kitchen staff were also directly under the butler's management, while in smaller households, the butler usually doubled as valet. Employers and their children and guests addressed the butler by last name alone; fellow servants, retainers, and tradespersons as "Mr. [Surname]".

Butlers were typically hired by the master of the house but usually reported to its lady. Beeton in her manual suggested a GBP 25 - 50 (USD 2,675 - 5,350) per-year salary for butlers; room and board and livery clothing were additional benefits, and tipping known as vails, were common. The few butlers who were married had to make separate housing arrangements for their families, as did all other servants within the hierarchy.

Beginning around the early 1920s (following World War I), employment in domestic service occupations began a sharp overall decline in western European countries, and even more markedly in the United States. Even so, there were still around 30,000 butlers employed in Britain by World War II. As few as one hundred were estimated to remain by the mid-1980s. Social historian Barry Higman argues that a high number of domestic workers within a society correlates with a high level of socio-economic inequality. Conversely, as a society undergoes levelling among its social classes, the number employed in domestic service declines.

Following varied shifts and changes accompanying accelerated globalisation beginning in the late 1980s, overall global demand for butlers since the turn of the millennium has risen dramatically. According to Charles MacPherson, vice chairman of the International Guild of Professional Butlers, the proximate cause is that the number of millionaires and billionaires has increased in recent years, and such people are finding that they desire assistance in managing their households. MacPherson emphasises that the number of wealthy people in China have increased particularly, creating in that country a high demand for professional butlers who have been trained in the European butlering tradition. There is also increasing demand for such butlers in other Asian countries, India, and the petroleum-rich Middle East.

Higman additionally argues that the inequality/equality levels of societies are a major determinant of the nature of the domestic servant/employer relationship. As the 21st century approached, many butlers began carrying out an increasing number of duties formerly reserved for more junior household servants. Butlers today may be called upon to do whatever household and personal duties their employers deem fitting, in the goal of freeing their employers to carry out their own personal and professional affairs. Professional butler and author Steven M. Ferry states that the image of tray-wielding butlers who specialise in serving tables and decanting wine is now anachronistic, and that employers may well be more interested in a butler who is capable of managing a full array of household affairs—from providing the traditional dinner service, to acting as valet, to managing high-tech systems and multiple homes with complexes of staff. While in truly grand houses the modern butler may still function exclusively as a top-ranked household affairs manager, in lesser homes, such as those of dual-income middle-class professionals, they perform a full array of household and personal assistant duties, including mundane housekeeping. Butlers today may also be situated within corporate settings, embassies, cruise ships, yachts, or within their own small "Rent-a-Butler" business or similar agency.

Along with these changes of scope and context, butlering attire has changed. Whereas butlers have traditionally worn a special uniform that separated them from junior servants, and although this is still often the case, butlers today may wear more casual clothing geared for climate, while exchanging it for formal business attire only upon special service occasions. There are cultural distinctions, as well. In the United States, butlers may frequently don a polo shirt and slacks, while in Bali they typically wear sarongs.

In 2007, the number of butlers in Britain had risen to an estimated 5,000.

Butlers traditionally learned their position while progressing their way up the service ladder. For example, in the documentary The Authenticity of Gosford Park, retired butler Arthur Inch (born 1915) describes starting as a hall boy. While this is still often the case, numerous private butlering schools exist today, such as The British Butler Institute, the International Institute of Modern Butlers, the Guild of Professional English Butlers, and The International Guild of Butlers & Household Managers; top graduates can start at US$50,000-60,000 (£25,350-30,400). Additionally, major up-market hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton offer traditional butler training, while some hotels have trained a sort of pseudo-butler for service in defined areas such as "technology butlers", who fix guests' computers and other electronic devices, and "bath butlers" who draw custom baths.

Starkey International distinguishes between the "British butler" prototype and its American counterpart, often dubbed the "household manager". Starkey states that they train and promote the latter, believing that Americans do not have the "servant mentality" that is part of the British Butler tradition[citation needed]. They stress that their American-style butlers and valets are educated and certified, Starkey does lay claim to understanding the British butler tradition; however, her general approach seems to be that American domestic staff are better suited to American families although some students, numerous former Starkey employees, and several wealthy clients have criticised the programme and its owner. Magnums Butlers, a school based in Australia, conducts training after the British model at sites in Asia and the Pacific, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Middle East. The International Institute of Modern Butlers provides on-site training in various places around the world as well as via correspondence. In 2007, City & Guilds, the U.K.'s largest awarder of vocational credentials, introduced a diploma programme for butlers.

In addition to formal training, a few books have been published recently to assist butlers in their duties, including Arthur Inch's and Arlene Hirst's 2003 Dinner is Served. Moreover, websites, as well as a news publication, Modern Butlers' Journal, help butlers to network and keep abreast of developments within their field.

Ferry argues that what he calls a "butler mindset" is beneficial to all people within all professions. He states that an attitude of devoted service to others, deference, and the keeping of confidences can help all people succeed.

‘I knew I needed help. I knew it was over’ / alcoholism, anger, Academy Awards – and 50 years of sobriety

 

‘I knew I needed help. I knew it was over’

alcoholism, anger, Academy Awards – and 50 years of sobriety

Anthony Hopkins

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2025/nov/03/i-knew-i-needed-help-i-knew-it-was-over-anthony-hopkins-on-alcoholism-anger-academy-awards-and-50-years-of-sobriety

 

The big interview

‘I knew I needed help. I knew it was over’: Anthony Hopkins on alcoholism, anger, Academy Awards – and 50 years of sobriety

As the actor approaches his 90th year and publishes an autobiography, he reflects on his early years on stage, being inspired by Laurence Olivier, becoming a Hollywood star and conquering his demons

 

Steve Rose

Mon 3 Nov 2025 05.00 GMT

 

‘What’s the weather like over there?” asks Anthony Hopkins as soon as our video call begins. He may have lived in California for decades but some Welshness remains, in his distinctive, mellifluous voice – perhaps a little hoarser than it once was – and his preoccupation with the climate. It’s a dark evening in London but a bright, sunny morning in Los Angeles, and Hopkins is equally bright in demeanour and attire, sporting a turquoise and green shirt. “I came here 50 years ago. Somebody said: ‘Are you selling out?’ I said: ‘No, I just like the climate and to get a suntan.’ But I like Los Angeles. I’ve had a great life here.”

 

It hasn’t been all that great recently, actually. In January this year, Hopkins’ house in Pacific Palisades was destroyed by the wildfires. “It was a bit of a calamity,” he says, with almost cheerful understatement. “We’re thankful that no one was hurt, and we got our cats and our little family into the clear.” He wasn’t there at the time; he and his wife, Stella, were in Saudi Arabia, where he was hosting a concert of his own music played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. They’re now in a rented house in the nearby neighbourhood of Brentwood. “We lost everything, but you think: ‘Oh well, at least we are alive.’ I feel sorry for the thousands of people who have been really affected. People who were way past retirement age, and had worked hard over the years and now … nothing.”

 

Hopkins will be 88 this December, but clearly doesn’t consider himself past retirement age. As a two-time Oscar-winner, a knight of the realm, a fixture of pop culture and one of the most revered actors alive, he has an embarrassment of laurels to rest on, but there’s still plenty on his schedule. He’s just finished a movie with Guy Ritchie, for whom he has a newfound admiration – “He’s precise in what he wants to see” – and he’s coming back to Britain soon, he says, to make a new movie with Richard Eyre (The Housekeeper, about Daphne du Maurier), then another one in Wales.

 

Nor is he too old to move with the times. On a recent Instagram video, he put on one of Kim Kardashian’s much-ridiculed Skims face wraps and channelled Hannibal Lecter. “Hello, Kim. I’m already feeling 10 years younger,” he announces to the camera, followed by Lecter’s trademark sinister lisping-slurping action. “Fun, wasn’t it?” he says, laughing. Kardashian told him she thought it was hilarious, he says.

 

But recently Hopkins has also been looking back, too – at his whole life. His new memoir, We Did OK, Kid, is far from your stereotypical luvvie memoir, partly because Hopkins is far from your typical luvvie – even if he does cross paths with past greats such as Laurence Olivier, Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn and Richard Burton – but mainly because he’s surprisingly upfront about his often troubled early life. When he describes his childhood in the Welsh town of Port Talbot, the only son of a family of bakers, it feels like a different planet. “My father had that attitude: stop whining, stop complaining, you don’t know what you’re talking about, stand up straight, get on with it!” His father was also prone to depression and anxiety, Hopkins says. It was wartime and postwar Britain; life was just like that.

 

By his own account, the young Hopkins comes across as a bit of a loner and an oddball. He had few friends, was frequently bullied and wouldn’t even go to his own birthday parties. He showed so little promise at school, one teacher told him he was “a brainless carthorse”. “I was living in my imagination, my dream world, I suppose,” he says. “I couldn’t understand anything intellectually or academically and that drove me into a kind of loneliness and resentment.” He retreated behind a mask of insolence, “a tough stance and a cold remoteness”, and that became his identity. Perhaps, in a way, he was already acting?

 

“Yes, yes, I think I was,” he says. “The only way I could protect myself was, if I got a slap across the head from a school teacher, I’d stare them out and I’d defy them. I wouldn’t react at all.” You can almost picture a young Hannibal Lecter doing the same.

 

His despairing parents had all but written him off, but he told them: “One day, I’ll show you,” he says. “I discovered that I had one small gift: I could remember things.” He was an avid reader, and easily retained facts, figures, whole poems and speeches from plays.

 

An early epiphany in terms of acting was seeing Olivier’s film adaptation of Hamlet at school in 1949, when he was 12. “I was shocked by my reaction,” he says. “I don’t know what it was about that, but it made such a punch in my head, hearing Shakespeare for the first time.” He started memorising speeches from Hamlet and Julius Caesar. His parents were amazed. (Decades later, his father, on his deathbed, asked Hopkins to recite Hamlet for him.)

 

Hopkins even goes as far as wondering if he has Asperger’s or some other form of autism. As well as his memory, he details behaviour such as repeating words obsessively and a “lack of emotionality”. He has never sought a professional assessment. “My wife, Stella, she diagnosed me. She said: ‘Well, you’re obsessive. Everything has to be laid out perfectly.’ I have to have everything arranged. So that’s a little twist in the brain, I suppose. But I’m quite happy with whatever inner disturbance I have.”

 

Hopkins’ memory is the foundation of his acting, he says. He reads his scripts 100 or 200 times, so every line is etched into his memory before he turns up on set. It started as a protection mechanism when he was a young actor, but it’s become his technique. “That was my gift, really: to know the part so well that I had no fear. Once you know the script, you have a relaxation to go on stage in rehearsal, so you can hear the other person. The art of acting, I think, is to be able to listen.”

 

In 1964, 15 years after being transfixed by Olivier’s Hamlet, Hopkins found himself auditioning in front of the man himself to join London’s National Theatre (cheekily, he did Othello, a role Olivier had recently made his own, albeit in blackface). He considers Olivier his mentor. “He gave me this huge break in my life. He seemed to admire my physical strength, because I had that in me, and I had this sense of Welsh danger, you know, quick-tempered.” He didn’t really get along with the English middle-class chumminess of the British theatre-world, though – the “kissy-smoochy-darling stuff”, as he puts it. “I’ve never felt comfortable with that.”

 

One area where he did find common ground – far too much of it – was alcohol. “Drinking was a family tradition,” he says. It was a theatre tradition, too. This was the era of “angry young men” epitomised by John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (Hopkins had been riveted seeing Peter O’Toole’s version in 1957), and of legendary, hard-drinking “hell-raisers” like O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Richard Burton and Richard Harris. Did he fit that description?

 

“Yes, yes, I did. I would not be trusted, and I would have fights and quarrel with, especially, directors. Looking back, it’s all paranoia. They were trying to do their job; I was trying to do mine, but I couldn’t take any … it wasn’t criticism, I couldn’t take any authoritative bullying. So I’d lash out.” He would often get into physical fights in pubs, too.

 

The week before Hopkins’ first marriage, to fellow actor Petronella Barker in 1966, he impulsively quit the National because of one such director, declaring he was giving up acting. He recalls his colleagues getting sloshed at the wedding reception then heading off to perform in the afternoon matinee. He used to do the same. “Oh yeah, it was terrible. You used to be on stage and not know where you were or why you were there, adding 10 minutes to the play.”

 

It was just the done thing, he says. “Yeah, we are rebels. We can fight. Who cares about the establishment? When you’re growing up, it’s healthy to want to punch out and be rebellious and survive. And it was a bit of fun, I thought. But I remember thinking one day: ‘Yeah, and it’s going to kill you as well.’”

 

It certainly took many of his contemporaries. By the mid-70s, even as his career was going places, Hopkins’ drinking and heavy smoking were taking a toll on his health – and his relationships. In 1969, after two years of marriage marked by rows, depression and a lot of whisky, he walked out on Barker and their one-year-old daughter, Abigail. He describes it as “the saddest fact of my life, and my greatest regret, and yet I feel absolutely sure that it would have been much worse for everyone if I’d stayed”. He and Barker divorced in 1972.

 

The real wake-up call came in December 1975, in LA. He woke up one morning to find his car missing, and called his agent to tell him. “Nobody stole it,” his agent replied. “We found you on the road.” Hopkins had driven all night from Arizona to Beverly Hills, about 500 miles, blackout drunk. “I was insane, I was nuts, I couldn’t remember half the journey,” he says. “And that’s a deadly way to live, because I didn’t care about myself. I could have taken out an entire family … I knew I needed help, I knew it was over.”

 

The way he narrates it, a literal voice in his head asked him if he wanted to live or die. He replied: “‘I want to live,’ and the voice said, ‘It’s all over now. You can start living.’” He went straight to Alcoholics Anonymous. Afterwards, “I got out on the street, 11am, 29 December 1975, and everything looked different. Everything seemed sunnier, everything seemed more … benign. No threat in the air.”

 

He doesn’t go as far as to claim it was God that spoke to him, but it was “a moment of clarity”, he says, “from deep inside here [he points to his head] or here [he points to his heart].” He has never craved a drink since. “We all have that power within us, and we choose our lives and navigate through that kind of … inspiration, I suppose it is.”

 

By this stage Hopkins was living and working more and more in the US, and in cinema. “I just wanted some sunshine, and I didn’t want to be standing around in wrinkled tights holding a spear for the rest of my life,” he jokes. It was his hero O’Toole who had first coaxed him on to a movie set, in 1968. He knocked on Hopkins’ dressing room door at the National one day and said, “I want you to do a test for me,” Hopkins says. “He’d had a few jars, and we went to the pub afterwards.”

Brasserie Lipp, a living legend

Watch on YouTube with english subtitling

 151 Boulevard Saint-Germain in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It sponsors an annual literary prize, the Prix Cazes, named for a previous owner.

 

On 27 October 1880, Léonard Lipp and his wife Pétronille opened the brasserie on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Their speciality was a cervelat rémoulade starter, then choucroute garnie, served with the finest beers. The brasserie's atmosphere and its modest prices made it a great success. Anti-German sentiment during the First World War led to a change of name to Brasserie des Bords for several years. Of Alsatian origin, Lipp left Alsace when it became part of Germany.

 

In July 1920, the bougnat (Paris immigrant) Marcellin Cazes redesigned the brasserie, which had become frequented by poets such as Paul Verlaine and Guillaume Apollinaire. He decorated it with tiled murals by Léon Fargues, with painted ceilings by Charly Garrey, and purple moleskin seating. In 1955, Cazes passed the baton to his son Roger.

 

On 29 October 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka, a Moroccan anti-monarchist politician opposed to King Hassan II, was abducted by the Moroccan Secret Service in front of the brasserie, probably with the help of the French. The 'Ben Barka Affair' became a political scandal which fundamentally changed France–Morocco relations.

 

Since 1990, the brasserie has been progressively developed by the Bertrand family of Auvergne, owners of the Angelina tea house, of fast food chain Bert's, and of the Sir Winston pub chain.

More than a restaurant, it's a true Parisian legend.

Founded in 1880 by two Alsatians, Léonard and Pétronille Lipp, Brasserie Lipp has been a staple of the chic Saint Germain district for 140 years.

Everything is in its original form.

The sumptuous Art Nouveau decor earned it a historic monument designation in 1989, and especially the menu, unchanged for over 60 years! Here, traditional cuisine is served, according to a fixed weekly schedule; otherwise, regulars revolt: pepper steak on Mondays, veal blanquette on Tuesday evenings, or cassoulet on Thursdays.

Another tradition: the clock is set ahead exactly seven minutes! Why? Is that how long it takes for members of parliament to get to the National Assembly?

We'll follow Pascal Jounault, the chef, as he tries to change two recipes without incurring the wrath of the celebrities and politicians who know him well. The first maître d'hôtel, who is also a physiognomist and who decides as soon as a guest walks in the door whether they deserve to stay on the ground floor or send them to "purgatory," meaning the first floor, where it's always too hot or always too cold.

His head waiters, who are numbered from 1 to 27 according to their seniority, and who argue very often. And finally, Cindy, the oldest member of staff in the establishment, who takes care of the evening cloakroom.

 

• Arrival of Luc, the first maître d'hôtel, arriving at 8 a.m. at the brasserie and starting by filling out his forms for the seating plan; Interview with Luc Pignon
• Preparation by Frédéric Gindre, head waiter donning a log jacket
• Pascal Jounault, head chef, explains that he doesn't change the recipes or daily specials
• Followed by Christian Leprette, a Lipp customer, walking through Saint Germain des Prés
• Marc Cerrone, a VIP customer, at his table
• Delivery of products including sauerkraut, 100-day-old chicken, Petrossian marinated herring, Joel Dupuch oysters, and reception by Pascal Jounault; the latter shows us the storerooms and the second kitchen in the basement
• Jauffrey Beauclair, director of the Brasserie, shows us the wooden revolving door and the three dining rooms "Paradis", "Purgatoire" and "Enfer"
• Luc tells us the story of the tables: Belmondo's No. 1, Picasso's No. 39, Lovers' No. 8
• Luc choosing the wrong table when seating Michel Lafon; Bruno Lemaire sitting at a table
• All clocks set forward 7 minutes, the time needed to reach the National Assembly
• Pascal visiting the butcher shop of Jean-Baptiste Bissonnet, official supplier to the Élysée Palace; Visiting the carcasses in the cold room, pierced by Rolling Stones music
• Louis Giscard d'Estaing and Alain Pompidou tasting the new veal blanquette
• Interview with Cindy Doniguian, cloakroom manager, making trips to the basement
• Followed by Patrice Le Cudennec, maître d'hôtel this Saturday
• Interview with Marie-Françoise and Monique, long-time customers

"

Why Vienna’s coffee houses are a real institution! | Cheers & Chats Ep. 1

The Top 6 traditional coffee houses in Vienna

You can get coffee everywhere nowadays. But real Viennese coffee house culture can only be found in Vienna. It's about more than coffee – it's about an attitude towards life. Let's dive into the old Viennese world of Melange, Buchteln and living history.

 

Viennese coffee house culture: sometimes in company, sometimes alone, never too many changes and always a really good coffee and a delicious pastry at a marble-topped table. This is where the Viennese can still be Viennese, and guests can dive into that unadulterated Viennese attitude towards life for a couple of hours.

 

Sometimes, the Viennese are right to shun change. In an age when everything is moving faster and faster, it's good to find a few things that endure and never change. Vienna's coffee houses among them. UNESCO takes the same view and added Viennese coffee house culture to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2011.

 

Dive into Viennese coffee house culture

Anyone who has ever experienced the unique atmosphere of a Viennese coffee house understands that only too well. History comes alive here. The air is heavy with the aroma of fresh coffee and enticing cakes, tarts and strudels. Newspapers rustle, guests talk excitedly about God and the world. Perhaps the busy author at the adjacent table is working on his next bestseller novel. Yet where can all this be experienced with particular intensity? We present six of the best traditional Viennese coffee houses to you here.

 

Café Jelinek

Our first stop is at Café Jelinek. Slightly tucked away, just off Mariahilfer Strasse, it's the perfect place to escape from the hustle and bustle of shopping for a few moments. This little café offers everything that Viennese coffee house culture is known for. Most things here have remained unchanged for decades. The wrought iron woodburner, excellent coffee, free newspapers and many sweet temptations give Café Jelinek a very special charm. Our insider tip: the home-made guglhupf cake.

 

Café Jelinek

Otto-Bauer-Gasse 5, 1060 Wien

+43 1 597 41 13

http://cafejelinek.steman.at/

Opening times

 

Café Sperl

Halfway between Mariahilfer Strasse and Vienna's famous Naschmarkt, we go on a journey through time in Café Sperl. It has been synonymous for Viennese coffee house culture since 1880. At Café Sperl, time seems to have stood still. Little about the furnishings has changed since it opened. Whether a cozy cup of coffee with a slice of original Sperl Torte or at one of the billiard tables, Café Sperl is perfectly suited for a short break in old Vienna.

 

Café Sperl

Gumpendorfer Straße 11, 1060 Wien

+43 1 586 41 58

melange@cafesperl.at

http://www.cafesperl.at

Opening times

 

Café Hawelka

Not far from Stephansplatz is one of Vienna's most legendary cafés. It's distinctive charm has made Café Hawelka a popular meeting place for famous peoples from the worlds of art and culture, such as Hans Moser, Udo Jürgens or Andy Warhol. The Hawelkas spent decades creating a real Viennese institution. What did Leopold Hawelka say so well? "I wouldn't be Hawelka without my wife." And it wouldn't be Café Hawelka without her famous Buchteln. The sweet aroma of these delicious, jam-filled leavened dough treats is an experience on its own.

 

Café Hawelka

Dorotheergasse 6, 1010 Wien

+43 1 512 82 30

office@hawelka.at

http://www.hawelka.at

Opening times

 

Café Korb

Café Korb, also near Stephansplatz, has welcomed guests through its doors since 1904. Breakfast is served here all day long, as is a fantastic Wiener schnitzel. Café Korb is famous for its Artlounge. Several artists designed this special room. The Artlounge forms an artistic and modern antithesis in the midst of a classical coffee house environment. Another eye-catcher in Café Korb are the many pictures from the life of the owner – the glittering actress and performance artist Susanne Widl.

 

Café Korb

Brandstätte 9, 1010 Wien

+43 1 533 72 15

http://www.cafekorb.at/

Opening times

 

Café Schwarzenberg

Café Schwarzenberg has always been one of the most popular places to meet among Vienna's coffee houses. It is Vienna's oldest Ringstrasse café, whose charm can be felt in all corners of the place. In 1980, Café Schwarzenberg almost became a car dealership, but the future mayor, Helmut Zilk, was just able to stop this happening. The result: You can still experience the special flair of the old Ringstrasse café today and enjoy traditional coffee and tea specialties with a wonderful slice of cake.

 

Café Schwarzenberg

Kärntner Ring 17, 1010 Wien

+43 1 512 89 98

office@cafe-schwarzenberg.at

http://www.cafe-schwarzenberg.at

Opening times

 

Café Central

The crowning finale is a visit to Café Central on Herrengasse. Since 1876, this Viennese coffee house in Palais Ferstel has exuded a very special ambience. The magnificent inner courtyard in the Venetian style, the excellent patisserie, and the pleasant piano music make every visit an experience. In addition to various coffee specialties, the café's guests enjoy the delicious classics of Viennese cuisine such as Tafelspitz (fillet of boiled beef), Wiener schnitzel and Kaiserschmarrn (sugared pancake strips).

 

Café Central

Herrengasse/Strauchgasse, 1010 Wien

+43 1 533 37 63 24

cafe.central@palaisevents.at

https://www.cafecentral.wien

Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales dies, aged 93 | ITV News

Fawlty Towers actor Prunella Scales dies aged 93

 ‘Perfection’: how Prunella Scales’s Sybil Fawlty is one of TV comedy’s best characters

 

The accomplished classical actress had a perfect ear and the ability to effortlessly pull off demanding jokes. Her performance as Sybil alongside John Cleese in Fawlty Towers was one of sitcoms’ finest

 

Mark Lawson

Tue 28 Oct 2025 15.28 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/oct/28/prunella-scales-tribute-sybil-fawlty-towers

 

Prunella Scales portrayed two of Britain’s greatest monarchs on TV: Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. She was the first dramatic actor to play the latter on television, and won a Bafta nomination for doing so.

 

However, Scales, who has died aged 93, knew that public memory of her would be shaped by another woman. One who made those two royals look powerless – the self-declared domestic and hospitality industry empress, Sybil Fawlty, wife of Basil, owner of the worst hotel in Torquay in Fawlty Towers, in which she co-starred with John Cleese, who also co-wrote with Connie Booth.

 

Though occupying only a few months of work in a seven-decade career that stretched from Lydia Bennet in a 1952 BBC Pride and Prejudice to a cameo in ITV’s The Royal (2011), the dozen episodes of the 1975 and 1979 series of Fawlty Towers have achieved rerun immortality. They have become a template for perfection in sitcom writing and performances, including Scales’s.

 

In naming the character, Cleese brought into play the classical associations of various Sybils with prophecy, longevity, guarding the gates of hell and, above all, inducing terror in mortal men. Especially effective at the last of these, Scales, an accomplished classical stage actor, knowingly channelled these mythical women.

 

Sybil cowed her husband with what might be called a Basilisk stare. The single word of another character’s name might not seem the most promising basis for a national catchphrase, but Scales created one from “Basil!”. All professional impressionists and many amateur ones at pubs and bus stops soon had it in their repertoire.

 

Scales was especially skilful in the elasticity of her delivery. Sometimes she barked so hard and fast that “Basil” seemed to have only one syllable. But elongating words like an opera singer gave Sybil another of her signature tics: the gossipy, “Oh, I knoooooow!”, that would punctuate phone calls to unseen friends. Further evidence of her perfect ear came when Basil was given a line about Sybil’s laugh sounding like “someone machine-gunning a seal.” It de facto became a demanding stage direction for Scales – which she pulled off effortlessly.

 

At script meetings these days, there would be concerns about the characterisation of Sybil being misogynistic or a stereotypical henpecker, and Cleese has said that the first script was rejected by the BBC partly on the grounds that it depicted a standard marital battleground.

 

In fact, the Cleese and Booth scripts were part of a trend in TV comedy of that era to give women strength and agency by dramatising their dominance over feckless men. Scales’s portrayal won sympathy for Mrs Fawlty by showing the character’s imperious manner to be a reasonable response to the snivelling idiocies and deceits of her husband. There was deliberate physical comedy in the 6ft 5in Cleese shrivelling at the voice of the 5ft 3in Scales.

 

That stature made her exactly the right height for Elizabeth II. Her portrayal of the then current monarch in A Question of Attribution (BBC One, 1991) – adapted by Alan Bennett from his stage play in which she had appeared at the National Theatre three years earlier – came with multiple degrees of difficulty.

 

Some conservative broadcasting grandees balked at the thought of dramatising a living monarch, which, outside of comedy lookalikes such as Jeanette Charles, had long been a taboo in English culture. And whereas theatre is a more artificial medium, Scales was playing her on TV alongside appearances of the real Queen on news bulletins and the annual Christmas Day broadcast. Scales, though, managed to be a spitting image without ever risking seeming like Spitting Image.

 

Though four inches taller than the famously diminutive Victoria, Scales captured everything else in the 2003 two-hour drama-documentary Looking for Victoria, directed by Louise Osmond, in which the actor was shown researching her stage show about the monarch between fictional interludes.

 

Scales brought to her screen work comic technique perfected in theatre. But TV also allowed her to play a choice part that had eluded her on stage: as Marion, a woman descending into alcoholism across the three successive Christmas Eve parties depicted in the 1985 BBC One seasonal treat production of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1972 play, Absurd Personal Singular.

 

Scales appeared on screen with her husband, the actor Timothy West, in her last substantial TV contribution, a long-running Channel 4 travelogue, Great Canal Journeys (2014-21). The show began happily, with the couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and revisiting honeymoon sites, but became progressively more poignant as subsequent series were candid about the diagnosis and progress of Scales’s dementia, becoming the last public service of a great career in raising awareness of the condition and its management.

 

Millions of Britons will have heard the word “Basil!” echoing happily in their heads today, a tribute to one of many great creations of a consummate comedy performer.

 

Fawlty Towers actor Prunella Scales dies aged 93

 

Actor portrayed Sybil Fawlty and later charmed viewers with her canal boat journeys alongside husband Timothy West

 

Hannah J Davies

Tue 28 Oct 2025 16.00 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/oct/28/fawlty-towers-actor-prunella-scales-dies-at-the-age-of-93

 

Prunella Scales, the actor best known for playing Sybil Fawlty in the classic comedy series Fawlty Towers, has died aged 93.

 

Scales, who was married to fellow actor Timothy West , was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2013.

 

The actor died peacefully at home in London on Monday, her sons, Samuel and Joseph, said.

 

A statement to the PA Media news agency said: “Our darling mother Prunella Scales died peacefully at home in London yesterday. She was 93.

 

“Although dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home. She was watching Fawlty Towers the day before she died. Pru was married to Timothy West for 61 years. He died in November 2024.

 

“She is survived by two sons and one stepdaughter, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

 

“We would like to thank all those who gave Pru such wonderful care at the end of her life: her last days were comfortable, contented and surrounded by love.”

 

Scales, who was born in Surrey in 1932, began her career as an assistant stage manager for the Bristol Old Vic theatre, having studied at its associated drama school. Her mother, Catherine, was an actor and her father, John, was a cotton salesman who loved the theatre. She told the Guardian in 2009: “Acting was always in the air. But when I got into the Bristol Old Vic my headmistress wrote to the director and said: ‘Are you sure this girl should be an actress? We wanted her to try for Cambridge.’ Of course, this was used as a stick to beat me with for the rest of my training”.

 

Following a number of film roles, including in a now-lost screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice from 1952, Scales broke into the mainstream in the television sitcom The Marriage Lines, which aired in the early 1960s, starring alongside Richard Briers. As well as roles in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Rumpole of the Bailey and TV’s Mapp and Lucia, Scales was best known for playing Sybil Fawlty in the John Cleese and Connie Booth-penned sitcom Fawlty Towers, in which she appeared between 1975 and 1979. In it, Scales memorably played the domineering Sybil, the wife of Cleese’s incompetent hotel boss Basil.

 

Cleese was among those who paid tribute to Scales following the news of her death. In a statement, he said: “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 added: “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.”

 

Scales also portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett’s A Question of Attribution – for which she earned a BAFTA nomination in 1992 – and appeared in adverts for the supermarket Tesco for 10 years from 1995, playing a demanding shopper, Dotty.

 

Between 2014 and 2019, Scales and West presented Channel 4’s Great Canal Journeys, which followed the couple on a series of canal and narrowboat journeys across the UK and Europe, and later further afield. In the final series of the programme, West said that Scales’s condition had worsened in recent times, and that she was also losing her hearing.

 

Downing Street passed on its condolences to Scales’ family, with Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson saying she was “a part of the golden era for British comedy, someone whose talent was beamed into people’s homes over many years”.

 

The broadcaster Gyles Brandreth remembered her as “a funny, intelligent, interesting, gifted human being”, while Jon Petrie, the director of comedy at the BBC, called her “a national treasure whose brilliance as Sybil Fawlty lit up screens and still makes us laugh today”.

 

Corinne Mills, the interim chief executive at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “We are deeply saddened by the news that Prunella Scales – a true British icon – has died.

 

“Prunella was an inspiration not just for her achievements on screen, but because she spoke so openly about living with dementia, shining an important light on the UK’s biggest killer.

 

“We are profoundly grateful for the awareness she helped to raise and send our heartfelt condolences to her loved ones.”