Rising comedy star Richard Beckinsale died in his sleep aged just 31 (Image: Photoshot/Getty Images)
IT was a death that horrified and saddened the nation. Forty years ago today, rising comedy star Richard Beckinsale, a favourite in the hugely popular sitcoms Rising Damp and Porridge, died in his sleep aged just 31, leaving behind a devastated wife and two bewildered young daughters. The sense of loss was widely felt because Beckinsale was not only admired for his acting skills but loved by all who knew him. Many also believe it robbed the industry of a huge talent whose career could have gone all the way.
Award-winning director Stephen Frears was working with him at the time of his death.
"It was such a shock," he recalls. "He was adorable - a wonderful actor and a very nice man. I was looking forward to directing him in future films. I think he would have gone on to be a movie star. He was very good-looking. He had it all."
Beckinsale's friend and Rising Damp co-star Don Warrington agrees. "He was a very fine actor who could turn his hand to anything. The trajectory of his career was upwards. He was a great loss."
Richard Beckinsale was a goodnatured, easy-going lad from Nottingham who made his first stage appearance at the age of eight in his school production of SnowWhite.
His teacher said he was the best Dopey she had ever seen. "He bumped into everything, knocked into the props.We didn't really know whether it was acting genius, or whether it was that he was so short-sighted."
Beckinsale left school at 16 already bitten by the acting bug but his first job was as an upholsterer at the local bus company. That ended with the sack when he fell asleep at the job, and was found at a bus depot five miles away.
Beckinsale with Leonard Rossiter, centre, and Don Warrington in Rising Damp (Image: ITV)
After a stint as a clerk at the gas board he worked as a pipe inspector at an ironworks. He took a day off to go for an audition for a drama course. Two years later, he won a scholarship for RADA.
His father Arthur wasn't sure acting was the best career path. "I told him it's a very dicey profession. You'll be out of work more than in and you must have a second string to your bow, even if it's hairdressing or something like that."
Beckinsale got married at 18 and had a daughter, Samantha, by his first wife Margaret. He met his second wife, the actress Judy Loe, while working in rep at Crewe.
He made his TV debut in Coronation Street in 1969, as a policeman who arrested the redoubtable Ena Sharples. His breakthrough came when starring opposite Paula Wilcox in the Granada sitcom The Lovers, which brought him an award as best television newcomer for 1971. In 1974 he was cast alongside Ronnie
