Rita Wolf


Rita Wolf is a British-Indian actress and theatre producer, best known for her role as Tania in My Beautiful Laundrette.

Life

Wolf moved to London as a child and trained at the Royal Court Youth Theatre alongside Tim Roth. She began her professional acting career in Hanif Kureishi's Borderline, a response to the 1981 race riots. She appeared on British television and in several London theatre productions, including the first professional production of Tara Arts, then had her first leading film role in Retake Film and Video Collective's 1984 movie Majdhar, where she played a young Pakistani woman abandoned by her husband in Britain. Since then, she has had major parts on stage and screen in both the United States and the United Kingdom. After playing Tania in My Beautiful Laundrette, she had television roles in Albion Market, Coronation Street, Tandoori Nights, Farrukh Dhondy's Romance, Romance and Calling the Shots, and Wing and a Prayer. She also appeared in Jack Gold's film The Chain, Steven Lisberger's Slipstream and Pratibha Parmar's Khush.
In 1989, Wolf and writer Rukhsana Ahmad founded the Kali Theatre Company in London, a registered charity that has a goal to encourage, develop, promote and produce the works of Asian female writers. Wolf directed the company's first production, Song for a Sanctuary, written by Ahmad. The Kali is supported in part by grants from the London Arts Board and the Arts Council of England.
Wolf now lives in New York City with her two children, Kiran and Anjeli. Anjeli Chapman had a major role in The War Within. Kiran Chapman was featured in A Heartbeat to Baghdad, a play about the Iraq War.

Filmography