Rula Lenska

Łubieński family coat of arms

Lenska was born in the village of Diddington, near St Neots, Huntingdonshire, England. She was born in a Polish refugee 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, and bearers of the Pomian coat of arms.[4] They once 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 Nazi occupation of the country. Later, he became adjutant to General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile and chief of the Polish military mission in Gibraltar during World War II. Łubieński later became head of the CIA-funded Polish Section of Radio Free Europe in Germany during the Cold War. Her mother was Countess Elżbieta Tyszkiewicz who escaped from Poland during the Nazi occupation, to Italy, 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 a few films in the late-1950s and early-1960s, and Gabriela. Lenska was educated at the Ursuline Convent School in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent.

Her big break was as 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]

Lenska appeared in adverts for the hair product Alberto VO5, which were shown on US television. Though Lenska was known in the UK, she had a low profile 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 Lenska's 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]

She has appeared in television series such as 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, the Doctor Who serial Resurrection of the Daleks (in the 1970s, Lenska made it to the final five actresses short-listed for the role of companion Jo Grant), Doctors and EastEnders, in which she played Frank Butcher's girlfriend, Krystle, in a 2002 Costa del Sol special. 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. Lenska starred in the black comedy Paradise Grove (2003). In 1982 Lenska also appeared as a storyteller in five episodes of the BBC children's programme Jackanory, narrating stories originating from traditional Polish folk tales.

Her film roles include 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. In 2009, Lenska joined the cast of Coronation Street as new character Claudia Colby, an old friend of Audrey Roberts. In May 2011, Lenska quit the role to join the Calendar Girls tour in August 2011. In 2016 she appeared in a Christmas special episode of Inside No.9. She reprised her role in Coronation Street in July 2018 before departing again in April 2020.

On radio she 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 the BBC and has recorded various audiobooks.

She has toured extensively both in the UK and abroad and appeared in several West End shows (most recently in The Vagina Monologues and 84 Charing Cross Road) and in many pantomimes and is a regular performer (and part of the original cast) of the touring play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners.

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.

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 was toured alongside Marti Webb and Sheila Ferguson in a new musical about menopause called Hot Flush.[9] and hosted a mini-show at Lutterworth Piano Rooms 3 November 2012.[10]

Her 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. 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.

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, when accidentally locked in the toilet, singer Pete Burns quipped, "Oh dear, what can the matter be, clapped out actress stuck in the lavatory." Lenska was the third housemate voted out of the show on 20 January 2006.[11]

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. Her marriage to Waterman ended because of his violent behaviour towards her, and in March 2012 Waterman caused controversy with some comments on that aspect of their relationship: "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] Lenska said that she was relieved that he had now admitted beating her.[17]

Waterman's daughter, Hannah Waterman, was starring in EastEnders at the same time as Lenska made her guest appearances, although they did not share any scenes together.

In 2009, she sought compensation from the Polish government for the Communist state's seizure of her family's Polish estate.

Lenska was arrested and charged with being in excess of the UK drink driving limit on 23 February 2016. The following month she was sentenced to a 16-month driving ban and ordered to pay a total of £526.[18] Her three-year-old grandson was present in the back seat of the car.[18]

• Łubieński family
• Poles in the United Kingdom

• Rula Lenska at IMDb
• 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