fiction.wikisort.org - Actor

Rula Lenska (born Róża Maria Leopoldyna Łubieńska,[1][2][3] 30 September 1947) is a British actress. She mainly appears in British stage and television productions and is known in the United States for a series of television advertisements in the 1970s and 1980s. She portrayed Claudia Colby in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.

Rula Lenska
Born	Róża Maria Leopoldyna Łubieńska[1][2][3] (1947-09-30) 30 September 1947 (age 75) St Neots, Huntingdonshire, England, UK
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1965–present
Spouses	Brian Deacon ​ ​ (m. 1977; div. 1987)​ Dennis Waterman ​ ​ (m. 1987; div. 1998)​
Children	2

Lenska was married to the actors Brian Deacon (1977–1987) and Dennis Waterman (1987–1998).

Early life

Lenska was born in England in the village of Diddington, near St Neots, Huntingdonshire, in a Polish resettlement camp that had previously been the EVAC American Military Hospital. Her birth was registered in nearby St Neots. Her family are members of the Polish nobility, bearing the Pomian coat of arms,[4] and before the war owned a castle and estate in Kazimierza Wielka, Poland. Her father, Major Count Ludwik Łubieński, was personal secretary to Józef Beck, Minister for Foreign Affairs in Poland before the German occupation of the country. Later, he became adjutant to General Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile and chief of the Polish military mission in Gibraltar during World War II; during the Cold War he headed the CIA-funded Polish Section of Radio Free Europe in Germany. Her mother was Countess Elżbieta Tyszkiewicz, who escaped from Poland to Italy during the German occupation, but was captured with her own mother and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where they survived for two years.[5] Lenska has two sisters: Anna, an actress who appeared in films in the late-1950s and early-1960s, and Gabriela. Lenska was educated at the Ursuline Convent School in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent.

Early career

Lenska's big break was as the Little Ladies band member "Q" in the British TV series Rock Follies (1976) and its sequel, Rock Follies of '77, the following year. By this time, she had "discarded" her title as a Polish countess; she has said of the decision, "In England it doesn't count, if you'll excuse the pun."[6]

In the late 1970s, Lenska began to appear in commercials for the hair product Alberto VO5, which were shown on US television. Though she was known in Britain, she was almost unknown in the United States. In a Tonight Show monologue broadcast after the commercials started running, Johnny Carson asked "Who the hell is Rula Lenska?" and began using her name as a running joke on his show.[7] Around the same time, Jane Curtin played Lenska in a sketch on Saturday Night Live.[8]

Television

Lenska has appeared in the television series Special Branch, Minder, Boon, The Detectives, Footballers' Wives, To the Manor Born, One Foot in the Grave, Casualty, Space: 1999, Return of the Saint, Robin of Sherwood, Doctors, and EastEnders, in which she played Frank Butcher's girlfriend, Krystle, in a 2002 Costa del Sol special. In the 1970s, Lenska made it to the final five actresses short-listed for the role of companion Jo Grant in Doctor Who, and she later appeared in the serial Resurrection of the Daleks. She played Mrs. Peacock in series 2 of Cluedo. She also starred with John Inman in the short-lived series Take a Letter, Mr. Jones (six episodes, 1981), with Lenska as an executive and Inman as her secretary. She was also featured in the BBC serial Private Schulz broadcast in the same year. In 1982 Lenska also appeared as a storyteller in five episodes of the BBC children's programme Jackanory, narrating traditional Polish folk tales. Lenska also starred in the black comedy Paradise Grove (2003). In 2009, Lenska joined the cast of Coronation Street as new character Claudia Colby, an old friend of Audrey Roberts. In May 2011, Lenska left the role to join the Calendar Girls tour in August 2011. In 2016, she appeared in a Christmas special episode of the comedy Inside No. 9. She reprised her role in Coronation Street in July 2018, before leaving the show again in April 2020. Lenska returned as Claudia for Norris Cole's funeral in September 2021, and returned again in August 2022.[9]

Film

Lenska's film roles have included Soft Beds, Hard Battles (1974), Confessions of a Pop Performer (1975), Royal Flash (1975), Alfie Darling (1975), It Could Happen to You (1976), The Deadly Females (1976), and Queen Kong (also 1976) as Luce Habit. In the film Gypo (2005), which was the first UK feature film to be made under Dogme rules, she played a Romani refugee from the Czech Republic living on a caravan site in Margate. She starred in the independent British film Jack Says (2008), opposite her one-time EastEnders co-star Mike Reid. That same year she lent her voice to the animation film Agent Crush.

Stage

Lenska has toured widely, both in the British Isles and overseas, and has appeared in several West End shows, including The Vagina Monologues and 84, Charing Cross Road, and also in many pantomimes. She is a regular performer (and part of the original cast) of the touring play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners.^{[citation needed]}

In December 2005, she appeared on stage with the London Gay Men's Chorus for their Christmas Show, Make the Yuletide Gay. She sang and danced while also hosting the show at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, the Dome Concert Hall in Brighton and the Barbican Centre in London.^{[citation needed]}

At the equivalent show in December 2006, Sandi Toksvig corrupted the lyrics of a song to suggest Lenska had a Christmas job in Debenhams. In 2007, she toured alongside Marti Webb and Sheila Ferguson in a new musical about menopause called Hot Flush.[10] and hosted a mini-show at Lutterworth Piano Rooms 3 November 2012.[11]

Radio and voice

On radio Lenska played Lintilla and her clones in the second series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and was also in the fifth series which debuted on BBC Radio 4 in May 2005. She has presented travel programmes for BBC radio and has recorded various audiobooks.^{[citation needed]}

Celebrity Big Brother

Lenska's work on tour with the London Gay Men's Chorus is assumed to have prompted her participation in the United Kingdom version of Celebrity Big Brother in January 2006.^{[citation needed]} Her reason for accepting the invitation to go on the show was "I'm a crazy Polish countess who likes a challenge". During the show, she declared that she had been a "Tibetan Buddhist" for many years but had been practising "Buddhism for the common man", which has no hierarchical structure (Nichiren Daishonin), for two years.^{[citation needed]}

On 13 January 2006, along with fellow housemate, Scottish politician and then-Respect Party MP George Galloway, she attracted the attention of the media by indulging in a role-play task set by Celebrity Big Brother, in which Galloway pretended to be a cat licking milk from her cupped hands, and Lenska stroked his ears and moustache. On another occasion during her time in the Big Brother house, she was accidentally locked in the toilet.

Personal life

Lenska has been married twice, first to actor Brian Deacon (4 June 1977 – 1987), with whom she had one daughter, Lara Parker (née Lara Deacon),[12][13][14] and secondly, to actor Dennis Waterman, from 3 January 1987 until 31 March 1998. Both marriages ended in divorce. She and Waterman met on the set of Minder in 1981 where their characters had a brief love interest. Some years after Lenska's second marriage ended, in a March 2012 interview with Piers Morgan, Waterman said: "It's not difficult for a woman to make a man hit her. She certainly wasn't a beaten wife, she was hit and that’s different."[15][16] Via her friend, Denise Welch on Loose Women, Lenska said that she was relieved that he had now admitted beating her. Lenska had made allegations against Waterman shortly after their split and thought she could no longer be accused of lying.[17]

In 2016, Lenska was sentenced to a 16-month driving ban and ordered to pay a total of £526 after crashing her car while under the influence of alcohol. Her three-year-old grandson was a passenger in the car.[18]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	Soft Beds, Hard Battles	Louise
1975	Alfie Darling	Louise
	Confessions of a Pop Performer	Receptionist
	Royal Flash	Helga
1976	It Could Happen to You	Rita
	The Deadly Females	Luisa
	Queen Kong	Luce Habit
1979	Jesus	Herodias	Scene cut
1981	The Seven Dials Mystery	Countess Radzsky
2003	Paradise Grove	Dee Perry
2004	Fakers	Sylvia Creat
2005	Gypo	Irina
2008	Jack Says	Garvey
	Agent Crush	Olga Thyburn	Voice role
2013	The Night of the Rabbit	Phosphera
	The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief	Baroness von Trebitz
2014	Bait	Linda
2018	The Exorcism of Karen Walker	Ada
2022	The Huntress of Auschwitz	Amelia Kaminska
2023	Winter Witch: The Curse of Frau Perchta	Omi	Post-production
TBA	The Picture of Dorian Gray	Narrator	Pre-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1965	Dixon of Dock Green	Policewoman	Uncredited
1971	The Doctors	Josee Erlander	2 episodes
1973	Once Upon a Time	Prince Charming	Episode: "Buttons"
1974	Special Branch	Lydia	Episode: "Something About a Soldier"
	Marked Personal	Roz	2 episodes
1975	Edward the Seventh	Hortense Schneider	Episode: "The Invisible Queen"
	The Brothers	Fiona Lester	Episode: "End of a Dream"
	Space: 1999	Joan Conway	Episode: "Alpha Child"
1976	Red Letter Day	Ms. Fandom	Episode: "Amazing Stories"
	Rock Follies	Nancy "Q" Cunard de Longchamps	All 6 episodes
1977	Leap in the Dark	Katerina	Episode: "Dream Me a Winner"
	Rock Follies of '77	Nancy "Q" Cunard de Longchamps	All 6 episodes
1979	Return of the Saint	Diana Lang	Episode: "Hot Run"
	BBC Play of the Month	Gilda	Episode: "Design for Living"
1980	The Cuckoo Waltz	Holly Galinsky	Episode: "A Love That Does Not Dim"
	Leap in the Dark	Harriet	Episode: "Watching Me, Watching You"
1981	The Seven Dials Mystery	Countess Radzsky	Television film
	Private Schulz	Gertrude Steiner	Series 1: Episode 4
	Take a Letter Mr. Jones	Joan Warner	All 6 episodes
	To the Manor Born	Mademoiselle Dutoit	Episode: "Cosmetics"
1982	BBC2 Playhouse	Mabel	Episode: "Aubrey"
	Minder	Kate	Episode: "The Birdman of Wormwood Scrubs"
1983	Conversations with a Stranger	Italian Woman	Television film
1984	Doctor Who	Styles	Episode: "Resurrection of the Daleks"
	Robin of Sherwood	Morgwyn of Ravenscar	Episode: "The Swords of Wayland"
1985	Minder	Natasha	Episode: "From Fulham with Love"
1988	Mr. H Is Late	Bride	Television film
	Boon	Renata Cartwright	Episode: "Never Say Trevor Again"
1989	Minder	Sandra Last	Episode: "The Last Video Show"
1991	Cluedo	Mrs. Peacock	6 episodes
	Family Pride	Eva	Unknown episodes
	An Actor's Life for Me	Marjorie	Episode: "May the Farce Be with You"
1992	Kappatoo	Zeta	7 episodes
	The Mixer	Lady Pamela Osgood	2 episodes
1993	Stay Lucky	Isabel Stevens	2 episodes
1994	The Detectives	Duchess	Episode: "Never Without Protection"
1996	One Foot in the Grave	Fenella Fortune	Episode: "Starbound"
2002	EastEnders	Krystal	4 episodes
2005	Footballers' Wives	Allana	1 episode
2006	Doctors	Vicky Mullen	Episode: "Blaze of Glory"
2007	M.I. High	Vanessa Zeitgeist	Episode: "Forever Young"
2009	Grandpa in My Pocket	Princess Purpelovna	Episode: "Princess Purpelovna's Plan"
2009–2011, 2018–present	Coronation Street	Claudia Colby	Regular role; 149 episodes
2011	Ideal	The Red King	Episode: "The Red King"
2016	Casualty	Vera Vintner	Episode: "Where the Truth Lies"
	Inside No. 9	Celia	Episode: "The Devil of Christmas"

See also

• Łubieński family
• Poles in the United Kingdom

References

External links

• Rula Lenska at IMDb
• Rula Lenska discography at Discogs
• Rock Follies interview
• E-Motion Magazine – Interview with Lenska
• Celebrity Big Brother — transcript of "cat" incident with Galloway
• Rula Lenska out-takes from 'Wild at Art' documentary on YouTube
• American Alberto VO5 commercial on YouTube

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