Rula Lenska (born Roza Maria Leopoldyna Lubienski[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 is known for the films Queen Kong and Aura, and she portrayed Claudia Colby in the ITVsoap operaCoronation Street.
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] The ribbing culminated with a sketch on the short-lived 1980 variety program The Big Show, where Steve Allen dressed in drag to parody her as “Rula Shiksa" making a commercial by a swimming pool, and Lenska, making her first U.S. appearance, came onto the set to confront him. Allen was not told about her presence, it was a prank arranged by the show's producer Nick Vanoff, who kept her hidden during the entire rehearsal and filming, so he was legitimately shocked when she approached him. She delivered a punchline, “I’m Rula Lenska and you’re not!” and then pushed him into the pool.[9]
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 comedyParadise 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.[10]
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.[11] and hosted a mini-show at Lutterworth Piano Rooms 3 November 2012.[12]
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 including Peaches For Monsieur Le Cure by Joanne Harris.[citation needed]
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),[13][14][15] 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."[16][17] 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.[18]
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.[19]
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