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Profile - Cast Member

Ursula Gatsby

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Ursula Gatsby

Miss Ursula Gatsby and Miss Abitha Tibbs are two mostly inseparable and slightly scatty elderly spinsters who are permanent residents of Fawlty Towers (the only other long-term guest is Major Gowen). Basil Fawlty switches from being overly kind to being utterly rude during his various conversations with them, and they rarely understand his sarcasm. They are depicted as being "on the edge of their eighties".[1]

The two ladies seldom have main roles in the plot, and are usually only background characters to add to the atmosphere. They appear in every episode of the series, though are uncredited in "A Touch of Class" (the pilot). Miss Tibbs plays a large role in the episode "The Kipper and the Corpse", the only time she is seen away from Miss Gatsby, where she is repeatedly startled by the corpse of Mr Leeman, which Basil, Manuel and Polly are desperately trying to keep hidden from guests until the undertaker arrives. Her unfortunate encounters with the deceased include being knocked unconscious by Polly, being locked in a cupboard with Leeman and fainting in horror after stumbling across the body in the hotel office. In that episode it is revealed that Tibbs is 79.