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
Alan Moore his friend, comic-book writer Steve Moore, whom he had known since he was fourteen. Interested in writing for "2000AD", one of Britain's most prominent comic magazines, Alan Moore then submitted a script for their long running and successful series "Judge Dredd". While having no need for another writer on "Judge Dredd", which was already being written by John Wagner, "2000AD"'s editor Alan Grant saw promise in Moore's work – later remarking that "this guy's a really fucking good writer" – and instead asked him to write some short stories for the publication's "Future Shocks" series. While the first few were