Donald Sinclair (hotel owner)

Donald Sinclair (10 July 1909 – 1981) was the owner of the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, which he had acquired after an extensive career in the Royal Navy. He was the inspiration for the character Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, due to his stuffy, snobbish and eccentric treatment of his guests, which included John Cleese and members of the Monty Python cast.

Several of the show's plotlines were partly based on real life events. The episode "The Builders" was inspired by an incident involving several builders who had come to rebuild Sinclair's garden wall. Sinclair witnessed them having a tea break; mistakenly believing they were deliberately slacking, he went into a fit of rage. Sinclair's general dislike of labourers was also briefly depicted in the pilot episode, "A Touch of Class", in which Basil insults O'Reilly over the phone.

Sinclair was also known for his xenophobic mistreatment of foreigners as depicted in "Waldorf Salad", which was based upon Sinclair's reaction to the "clearly American" table manners of Terry Gilliam. The excuse of 'we've had a bomb scare'—depicted in the series finale, "Basil the Rat"—was used by Sinclair when he flung Eric Idle's rucksack over the hotel wall. Sinclair really did employ cheap labour (à la Manuel) in the form of foreigners, many of whom suffered abusive treatment under his employment. Cleese, who played Basil Fawlty, played a character named Donald Sinclair in the movie Rat Race.

Opinions are divided on how closely Sinclair resembled Basil Fawlty. Former staff and visitors have remembered actual events there that were allegedly as ludicrous as those depicted in the programmes. However Sinclair's wife and daughters are adamant that Fawlty was an inaccurate caricature of Sinclair.

Sinclair died in England in 1981. He was survived by his wife Beatrice and two daughters.

References

• Fawlty Towers DVD release.