Rula Lenska was born on Roza Maria Leopoldyna Lubienski 30 September 1947 and is a Polish actress.
28 Facts About Rula Lenska
1.
2.
Rula Lenska 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.
3.
Rula Lenska is known for the films Queen Kong and Aura, and she portrayed Claudia Colby in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.
4.
Rula 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.
5.
Rula Lenska's family is Polish nobility, bearing the Pomian coat of arms, and before the war owned a castle and estate in Kazimierza Wielka, Poland.
6.
Rula Lenska's mother was Countess Elzbieta Tyszkiewicz, who escaped from Poland to Italy during the German occupation, but was captured with her own mother and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where they survived for two years.
7.
Rula Lenska has two sisters: Anna, an actress who appeared in films in the late-1950s and early-1960s, and Gabriela.
8.
Rula Lenska was educated at the Ursuline Convent School in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent.
9.
Rula 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.
10.
Rula Lenska played Mrs Peacock in series 2 of Cluedo.
11.
Rula Lenska starred with John Inman in the short-lived series Take a Letter, Mr Jones, with Lenska as an executive and Inman as her secretary.
12.
Rula Lenska was featured in the BBC serial Private Schulz broadcast in the same year.
13.
In 1982 Rula Lenska appeared as a storyteller in five episodes of the BBC children's programme Jackanory, narrating traditional Polish folk tales.
14.
In 2009, Rula Lenska joined the cast of Coronation Street as new character Claudia Colby, an old friend of Audrey Roberts.
15.
In May 2011, Rula Lenska left the role to join the Calendar Girls tour in August 2011.
16.
Rula Lenska reprised her role in Coronation Street in July 2018, before leaving the show again in April 2020.
17.
Rula Lenska returned as Claudia for Norris Cole's funeral in September 2021, and returned again in August 2022.
18.
Rula Lenska starred in the independent British film Jack Says, opposite her one-time EastEnders co-star Mike Reid.
19.
Rula 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 in many pantomimes.
20.
Rula Lenska is a regular performer of the touring play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners.
21.
Rula Lenska sang and danced while hosting the show at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, the Dome Concert Hall in Brighton and the Barbican Centre in London.
22.
At the equivalent show in December 2006, Sandi Toksvig corrupted the lyrics of a song to suggest Rula Lenska had a Christmas job in Debenhams.
23.
On radio Rula Lenska played Lintilla and her clones in the second series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and was in the fifth series which debuted on BBC Radio 4 in May 2005.
24.
Rula Lenska has presented travel programmes for BBC Radio and has recorded various audiobooks including Peaches For Monsieur Le Cure by Joanne Harris.
25.
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 Rula Lenska stroked his ears and moustache.
26.
Rula Lenska has been married twice, first to actor Brian Deacon, with whom she had one daughter, Lara Parker, and secondly, to actor Dennis Waterman, from 3 January 1987 until 31 March 1998.
27.
Rula Lenska had made allegations against Waterman shortly after their split and thought she could no longer be accused of lying.
28.
Rula Lenska's three-year-old grandson was a passenger in the car.