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Blonde Lenka Peterson, born Lenka (or Lenke) Isacson in Omaha, grew up there as the daughter of Sven Edward Isacson, a Swedish diagnostician, and Magdalina "Lenke" (Leinweber), a Hungarian lab technician. She first gained acting experience in local amateur theatre. After studying drama at the University of Iowa, she relocated to New York in 1943. Struggling to break into Broadway, she lived modestly at the Rehearsal Club, a boarding house for women. Her initial paid job, earning $20 a week, was as a uniformed tour guide at NBC studios. With the help of an agent, she secured an understudy role at a New Hampshire playhouse, which led to additional roles in regional theatres across various states. Peterson made her Broadway debut in 1947 in the play Bathsheba at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, marking the first of twelve Broadway appearances. In 1948, she married Daniel Patrick O'Connor, with whom she had five children, including actors Glynnis O'Connor and Darren O'Connor.
As one of the earliest members of New York's Actor's Studio, Lenka was discovered by Elia Kazan, who cast her in a minor role in his film Panic in the Streets (1950). By 1951, with steady work coming in, she divided her time between Hollywood and St. Louis, where her husband worked in the university's speech and drama department. She earned $350 weekly acting in early television anthologies and drama series. Her career thereafter was primarily split between theatre and television. Her theatre work peaked with a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress on Broadway in the 1984 musical Quilters. Although she never achieved major on-screen stardom, she consistently found work in television, with recurring roles on soaps such as Ryan's Hope (1975) and Another World (1964), and guest appearances on shows like Route 66 (1960), Kojak (1973), Quincy, M.E. (1976), Hill Street Blues (1981), and Law & Order (1990). Additionally, she taught acting at the Metropolitan Opera Studio and founded the non-profit Westchester Young Actors Theater in New York.
