Rula Lenska may be best known for her marriage to Dennis Waterman, but there are many more strings to her bow. Hannah Stephenson catches up with the flame-haired actress and discovers a revival tinged with sadness
W alking into the hotel bar, I recognise the actress Rula lenska immediately - the flurry of thick red hair, statuesque frame and sultry tones of that sexy, deep voice which helped make her a star in the 70s are unmistakable. Lenska is now 66 but there's no hint of a pensioner in the skin-tight black leggings she's wearing below an elegant black and white animal print blouse.
Those too young to remember her starring role in the iconic 70s TV series Rock Follies, about the rise of a female pop group, may well recognise her from the famous cat improvisation she conducted with George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006. Galloway, as a cat, pretended to lick milk from her cupped hands, and Lenska stroked his ears and moustache. "It was 16 days of madness," she recalls. "At first it's amusing and quite fun. There's lots of food, drink and fags, but once the screws start to tighten, it's similar to being in prison. One of the worst things was the boredom."
Her profile was again raised in 2012 when her ex-husband Dennis Waterman admitted in a Piers Morgan TV interview that he hit her during their marriage. now, after years of being vilified for casting aspersions on Waterman, one of Britain's best-loved actors, she has decided to set the record straight with her own autobiography, Rula: My Colourful life. "i wanted to let people know that my life is much more than my life with Mr Waterman and Big Brother and Corrie (she played Claudia Colby, an old friend of Audrey Roberts, until 2011). "The catalyst was also Dennis's very bizarre comments on the Piers Morgan show, which i found extraordinary. For me, it was a relief because i'd been called a liar for a long time and whatever made him admit it i have no idea. i can't believe he didn't realise what he was saying.
"Of course i'm pleased to be exonerated after so much time, but it did its harm then, a long time ago. There were a lot of people who chose to believe him and not me." At several points in our interview, Lenska asks me not to focus solely on Waterman, to whom she was married for 11 years. And it's true that she has done so many other things in her life, including theatre, TV, a famous advertising campaign for alberto VO5 hair products in the US, animal conservation and other projects.
Yet conversation seems to slip back to Waterman frequently, such was the influence he had on her life for so many years. Lenska, a practising Buddhist, devotes a fair chunk of space in her book to her ex-husband, from the time she met him on the set of Minder to their decision to both leave their spouses and indulge in a passionate relationship which was to last more than 10 years before it all turned sour. Indeed, she reports that he had affairs, drank too much and resorted to physical violence on occasion. Yet their break-up damaged her career, not his, she says now. "He had a lot of powerful people in the business and a lot of public and people in the media seemed to be on his side, which i could never quite understand, but i've moved on." Lara, her daughter from her first marriage to actor Brian Deacon, was extremely upset to lose contact with Waterman's children, Hannah and Julia, and hasn't seen them since. Lenska stresses that when their relationship was good, it was really great. For while Waterman was a man's man, preferring the company of the lads down the pub and watching football or cricket to coming home to the family, he was also an incredibly charismatic character and a romantic, she writes.
These days, she relishes her wider family, most notably her grandson (whose name she wants to keep private), her daughter Lara and first husband Deacon, with whom she has remained great friends. "He's always behaved incredibly gallantly because we have one child between us and now this adored grandson. It's a wonderful coming together of ends, of broken hearts and sadnesses and now it's all good."
Does she regret leaving Deacon? "Obviously in hindsight, with the way things finished, a little bit, but I try not to regret anything. Everything that's happened to me in my life, good and bad, has made me what I am. The majority of the time with Dennis, it was a wonderful relationship. Chalk and cheese it might have been, but it was fantastic."
Lenska has always had a strong sense of family. The daughter of a Polish count and countess who fled to England in 1946, her parents mixed in high-class society in London and the Polish people with whom they socialised became Lenska's extended family.
Her mother was prone to bouts of manic depression, while her father spent long periods working in Munich for the Polish-American immigration unit looking after displaced refugees from behind the Iron Curtain.
By then, Rula had two sisters and a brother, and her mother then had an affair which led to her being ostracised by older members of the Polish community. When she found out she was pregnant by her lover, she split up with Rula's father and went on to marry again.
A rebel at heart, Rula was soon expelled from her local Catholic grammar school in Hammersmith for "doing a war dance on the school roof wearing my gym knickers".
Her extrovert, Bohemian nature was channelled into acting and she went on to the Webber Douglas drama school. From there, her career was launched and she has kept herself busy with theatre work, TV roles and conservation projects.
She hopes the book will open doors and revitalise her career. She hasn't had a major TV role since Corrie in 2011, although she's been asked to put together a one-woman cabaret show next year. "There's a dearth of good parts for middle-aged women unless you happen to be Helen
Mirren or Judi Dench. But I've decided to be a lot more proactive." There's no bitterness that Waterman's career - which she doesn't follow - has continued successfully.
"I know that he's still an avid golfer, but we have no contact at all. I don't have negative feelings. He will always hold something in my heart." Independent life hasn't been without its ups and downs, she admits. "Obviously it's a relief not having to worry who is coming home in what mood, but there are moments of loneliness. You have to learn to like your own company, to occupy yourself. Out of tough lessons came good discoveries."
She remains close to her two sisters and all the cousins, but says that she would like to meet someone to share her life with. "It would be wonderful. However, in reality it's so rare to meet single men of a suitable age and if they are single at this age, there's more often than not a pretty good reason. "I never lose hope and I trust in karma. I believe what's meant to be is meant to be. I'm in a much more stable and emotionally comfortable position now." * Rula: My Colourful Life by Rula Lenska is published by The Robson Press, priced £20. Available now
n GOING IT ALONE: Rula Lenska and, right below, with ex-husband Dennis Waterman