Samantha back to live in Nottingham and Beckinsale left London to work in repertory in Crewe. They divorced in 1971 and Beckinsale did not see his daughter for years. Margaret later remarried and her new husband raised Samantha as his daughter. Samantha was unaware that her biological father was Richard Beckinsale until she was 11. Beckinsale and Samantha reconnected soon after and spent time together, before his death in 1979. Beckinsale met actress Judy Loe in 1968 at Crewe repertory. They soon began dating and lived together for years. Their daughter, actress Kate Beckinsale, was born on 26 July 1973. They finally married in 1977, prior to Kate starting nursery school. Beckinsale enjoyed playing the guitar and singing, and he performed in folk clubs in Nottingham as a teenager. He also enjoyed playing football and often played in charity matches with the Entertainers XI team. He was a fan of Manchester United football team. Beckinsale stated that towards the end of his 19th-month run with the play Funny Peculiar, he took Valium and had several instances of having to start the play over again, due to overwork and mental strain. Beckinsale's widow, Loe, stated that he suffered from occasional panic attacks. Because of his good looks and his being on television so often, he received a large amount of fan mail, particularly from women. Although Beckinsale was pleased with the success of the sitcoms he starred in, he expressed a desire to play more serious roles as he got older. Death Beckinsale worked on the BBC sitcom Bloomers, five episodes of which were filmed prior to Christmas 1978. According to his Bloomers co-star Anna Calder-Marshall, during the recording of the first episode, he told her he had suffered some kind of black-out, and had some dizzy spells. This concerned him enough to make an appointment to see a doctor, but the doctor could not find anything wrong apart from an overactive stomach lining, and slightly high cholesterol. As filming on the series progressed, Beckinsale appeared increasingly tired, and "greyer and greyer", according to co-star David Swift. Because of an industrial dispute at the BBC in late December 1978, the filming of the sixth episode of Bloomers had to be postponed until March. In January 1979, for an insurance policy for a film, Beckinsale passed a full medical examination in which his heart, lungs, breathing, and blood pressure were checked. He