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Rula Lenska (born Roza Maria Leopoldyna Lubienski 30 September 1947) is an English 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 ITV soap opera Coronation Street.
Lenska was married to the actors Brian Deacon (1977–1987) and Dennis Waterman (1987–1998). Both marriages ended in divorce.
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. 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.
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, yet the commercials were scripted as if Lenska was an established celebrity. 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. Around the same time, Jane Curtin played Lenska in a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live archive 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. How to Be Funny by Steve Allen, pg. 243.
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.
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 Brighton 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 toured alongside Marti Webb and Sheila Ferguson in a new musical about menopause called Hot Flush. and hosted a mini-show at Lutterworth Piano Rooms 3 November 2012.
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.
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.
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| Voice role |
| Voice role |
| Uncredited |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "Buttons" |
| Episode: "Something About a Soldier" |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "The Invisible Queen" |
| Episode: "End of a Dream" |
| Episode: "Alpha Child" |
| Episode: "Amazing Stories" |
| All 6 episodes |
| Episode: "Dream Me a Winner" |
| All 6 episodes |
| Episode: "Hot Run" |
| Episode: "Design for Living" |
| Episode: "A Love That Does Not Dim" |
| Episode: "Watching Me, Watching You" |
| Episode 7 |
| Television film |
| Series 1: Episode 4 |
| All 6 episodes |
| Episode: "Cosmetics" |
| Episode: "Aubrey" |
| Episode: "The Birdman of Wormwood Scrubs" |
| Television film |
| Episode: "Resurrection of the Daleks" |
| Episode: "The Swords of Wayland" |
| Episode: "From Fulham with Love" |
| Television film |
| Episode: "Never Say Trevor Again" |
| Episode: "The Last Video Show" |
| 6 episodes |
| Unknown episodes |
| Episode: "May the Farce Be with You" |
| 7 episodes |
| 2 episodes |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "Never Without Protection" |
| Episode: "Starbound" |
| 4 episodes |
| 1 episode |
| Episode: "Blaze of Glory" |
| Episode: "Forever Young" |
| Episode: "Princess Purpelovna's Plan" |
| Regular role; 149 episodes |
| Episode: "The Red King" |
| Episode: "Where the Truth Lies" |
| Episode: "The Devil of Christmas" |
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| Voice |
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