Lara Parker Deacon is the daughter of British actress Róża Maria Leopoldina Łubieńska also known as Rula Lenska. Lara Deacon’s mother is mostly recognized for her work in British television and film productions. She is also known for a series of commercials for the hair product Alberto VO5 in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in the United States, which were displayed on US television. She was well known in Britain and was almost unknown in the United States.
Lara Parker Deacon: Bio Summary
Name | Lara Parker Deacon |
Famous as | Daughter of Rula Lenska |
Gender | Female |
Parents | Rula Lenska, Brian Deacon |
Aunts | Anna Lubienski, Gabriella Lubienski |
Grandparents | Major Ludwik Maria Lubienski, Countess Elzbieta Tyszkiewicz |
Lara Parker Deacon’s mom became successful as the Little Ladies band member “Q” in the British TV series Rock Follies and its sequel, Rock Follies of ’77. She “discarded” her title as a Polish countess.
She joined and appeared as new character Claudia Colby in the cast of Coronation Street, an old friend of Audrey Roberts in 2009, reprised her role in Coronation Street in July 2018 before leaving in April 2020 and also appeared in the Tv 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.
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The mother of Lara Parker Deacon was born on 30 September 1947, in England. She was born in a Polish refugee camp which was previously the EVAC American Military Hospital, in the village of Diddington, near St Neots, Huntingdonshire.
She attended the Ursuline Convent School in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. Her father is called Major Count Ludwik Łubieński while her mother is called Countess Elżbieta Tyszkiewicz.
Lara Parker’s grandfather, Major Count Ludwik Łubieński was a personal secretary to Józef Beck, Minister for Foreign Affairs in Poland before the German occupation of the country and later became adjutant to General Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile and chief of the Polish military mission in Gibraltar during World War II; during the Cold War, he headed the CIA-funded Polish Section of Radio Free Europe in Germany.
Lara Parker Deacon had two aunts from her mother’s side named Anna and Gabriela Lubienski. Anna was an actress who was seen in the late-1950s and early-1960s movies.
Lara Parker’s mother married twice. She got married to Lara Deacon’s dad, Brian Deacon who was an actor by profession. They got married from 4 June 1977 to 1987. They had a daughter, Lara Parker Deacon.
She later married actor Dennis Waterman, her second husband she met on the set of Minder in 1981. Their marriage lasted from 3 January 1987 until 31 March 1998.
However, Lara Parker’s mother appeared in the serial Resurrection of the Daleks, also played the role of Mrs. Peacock in series 2 of Cluedo, and was featured in the BBC serial Private Schulz broadcast. She starred along 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 made an appearance as a storyteller in five episodes of the BBC children’s program Jackanory, narrating traditional Polish folk tales in the year 1982, and starred in the black comedy Paradise Grove in 2003. She joined the Calendar Girls tour in August 2011 and was seen in a Christmas special episode of the comedy Inside No. 9, in 2016.
She also appeared in film roles like Soft Beds, Hard Battles, Confessions of a Pop Performer, Royal Flash, Alfie Darling, It Could Happen to You, The Deadly Females, and Queen Kong, as Luce Habit. She played a Romani refugee from the Czech Republic living on a caravan site in Margate in the movie Gypo and starred in the independent British film Jack Says with her one-time EastEnders co-star Mike Reid.
Lara Parker Deacon’s mother had lent her voice to the animation film Agent Crush and on radio, she played Lintilla and her clones in the second series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. She was part of the fifth series which debuted on BBC Radio 4 in May 2005 and presented travel programs for BBC radio, recording several audiobooks.
She also toured the British Isles and overseas, appearing in a lot of West End shows like TIe Vagina Monologues and 84, Charing Cross Road, and also in many pantomimes.
She went on to work on tour with the London Gay Men’s Chorus, assumed to have prompted her participation in the United Kingdom version of Celebrity Big Brother in January 2006. She is part of the original cast of the touring play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinner and also a regular performer.
Lara Parker Deacon’s mother pursued compensation from the Polish government for the Communist state’s seizure of her family’s Polish estate in the year 2009. She got arrested with her young grandson present in the back seat of the car and charged with being more than the UK drink driving limit in 2016 and was sentenced to a 16-month driving ban, ordering her to pay £526.