Early Career
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 renounced her title as a Polish countess; she has said of the decision, "In England it doesn't count, if you'll excuse the pun."
Rock Follies was not widely seen in North America, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lenska became famous in the United States and Canada for her Alberto VO5 hair products commercials. The commercial began with a closeup of her stating, "I'm Rula Lenska." People assumed this was a product endorsement by a celebrity whose name the advertisers expected them to know—although, in North America, Lenska was virtually unknown prior to the VO5 ad campaign. In another TV commercial, this time for RCA, she states "My hair is a brilliant red, my eyes a dazzling green and if you're not seeing that you're not watching on an RCA television". In a Tonight Show monologue that aired 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. Around the same time, Jane Curtin played Lenska in a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Soon (at least to US audiences) Lenska became famous because of the mere assumption that she was famous. Most people in the US were unaware that she had an acting career in the United Kingdom, and believed she was a model. The discovery that she was not that prominent in the United States led to Alberto-Culver's eventual decision not to renew its contract with her, bringing an end to her commercial "starring roles".
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