Kate Beckinsale is honoured her father Richard remains a revered actor in her native England - because it helps her remember him.

The late actor, star of British sitcoms Porridge and Rising Damp, was just 31 when he suffered a massive heart attack in his sleep - leaving his wife, actress Judy Loe, to bring up a then five-year-old Kate.

And the Underworld star insists she is grateful to Britain for keeping his memory alive - since she has little recollection of her dad.

She says, "I do have memories, but when you're that young, you're not really at the conversational stage of a relationship.

"He's still such a huge figure in England, which I find moving and impressive all these years later, but at the time, I used to get him confused with both God and John Lennon because John Lennon died a couple of years later, and I remember getting the whole thing a bit mixed up." (PAW/WNSTIS/JC)

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