Richard Arthur Beckinsale (6 July 1947 – 19 March 1979) was an English actor. He played Lennie Godber in the BBC sitcom Porridge (along with its sequel series Going Straight) and Alan Moore in the ITV sitcom Rising Damp. He is the father of actresses Samantha and Kate Beckinsale. Early life Beckinsale was born in Carlton, Nottinghamshire, the youngest of three children, to an Anglo-Burmese father, Arthur John Beckinsale, and an English mother, Maggie Barlow. Beckinsale stated in 1977 that he may have been a distant relative of the actor Charles Laughton. While attending College House Junior School in Chilwell, Beckinsale appeared in his first of many school plays, playing Dopey in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As a teenager at Alderman White Secondary Modern School, he played the lead in Tobias and the Angel and also appeared as Hsieh Ping-Kuei in Lady Precious Stream, which earned him a positive review in the Nottingham Evening Post. Beckinsale left school at 15 with ambitions to become a professional actor but he was still too young to go to drama school. He spent a year working in numerous manual labour jobs, including spells as an upholsterer's apprentice, a pipe inspector, and an assistant in a grocery business. At 16, Beckinsale enrolled at Nottingham College, Clarendon, taking the drama teacher's training programme and spent the next two years there, until he was old enough to apply to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After failing his first audition for RADA, Beckinsale was accepted on his second attempt, becoming just one of 31 successful applicants from a total of more than 12,500. While at RADA, Beckinsale won a prize for comedy. After graduating in 1968, he moved to Crewe to begin in repertory theatre. He also appeared in various other repertory productions around the country, including Hull, Leeds, London, and Colchester. While at Crewe, Beckinsale played such roles as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, and the title role in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Following his stint in 1969 playing Hamlet, Beckinsale took a brief hiatus from acting and worked at a bottle factory, before returning to acting soon after. Career First television appearances Beckinsale made his television debut in 1969 as a police officer in Coronation Street, in which he had to arrest veteran character Ena Sharples. He later had a small role in a 1970 episode