Richard Beckinsale Richard Beckinsale Richard Arthur Beckinsale (6 July 1947 – 19 March 1979) was an English actor, who played Lennie Godber in the BBC sitcom "Porridge" (along with its sequel series "Going Straight") and Alan Moore in the British ITV sitcom "Rising Damp". He is the father of actresses Samantha Beckinsale and Kate Beckinsale. Beckinsale was born in Carlton, Nottinghamshire, to an Anglo-Burmese father, Arthur John Beckinsale, and an English mother, Maggie Barlow. He left Alderman White Secondary Modern School at 15 with ambitions to become an actor, so while working in numerous manual jobs he enrolled at a Nottingham adult
Kate Beckinsale "compensations include Beckinsale, looking incredible in a succession of black dresses, whose character can get on your nerves even if the actress doesn't." Her performance earned her a London Critics' Circle Film Award. The film grossed $3 million worldwide. Also that year, she starred as Alice in a Channel 4 production of "Through the Looking-Glass". In 1999, Beckinsale appeared opposite Claire Danes in "Brokedown Palace", a drama about two teenage Americans forced to deal with the Thai justice system on a post-graduation trip abroad. A then 26-year-old Beckinsale played a teenager. Danes had hoped to become friends with Beckinsale during