Kate Beckinsale’s Father’s Day Tribute to Late Dad Richard 30 Years After His Tragic Death Is Moving Fans

Kate Beckinsale remembered her late father Richard Beckinsale in a touching Father’s Day tribute.

On Sunday, Beckinsale, 45, took to Instagram to share a black-and-white photo of herself when she was a child alongside her father, who passed away in 1979 at the age of 31 from a heart attack at the family’s Berkshire home. The actress had been just five at the time of his death.

“There has never been anyone like you. Happy Father’s Day,” the actress captioned the photo, adding a black heart emoji.

The touching tribute was met with a wave of support from Beckinsale’s followers, who took to the comments section.

“The whole country misses your dad – he was amazing,” one of Beckinsale’s followers wrote.

“Absolute legend and all round amazing bloke,” another commented.

Just a day before her Father’s Day post, Beckinsale had shared another tribute, this one alongside a photo of her five-year-old self and her mother Judy Loe on the day of her father’s memorial service.

“Don’t be fooled by ‘children are resilient’. This is my mother and me attending the ‘celebration of life ‘ memorial service for my dad. I look fine,” she wrote. “I was shattered, heartbroken and shocked.”

“Every time Father’s Day comes around I remember my father with such love and longing, and I remember the deep shame, loneliness and self-loathing when I was excused from aged 5 onwards from making Father’s Day cards at school,” the actress continued. “I didn’t know anyone else who had lost a parent and there was no number to call to find advice on how to support grieving children.”

The Underworld actress went on to thank writer Kelli Auerbach for her The New York Times article in which she wrote “about losing both of her parents before the age of 20.”

“It’s moving and beautifully written and I really advise reading it, if Father’s Day (or Mother’s Day ) is a painful issue for you or your children,” Beckinsale wrote. “The amount of shame children carry for having a dead parent is astonishing. Resources such as the National Alliance for Grieving Children (@childrengrieve )at childrengrieve.org in the US and Winston’s wish at winstonswish.org ( @winstonswish )in the UK give invaluable support to kids in this position, at a time when the rest of the family are grieving themselves.”

“Big hugs to everyone who feels like shit as this lovely holiday comes around,” the actress added. “You may not be able to buy a card. You’re in the Dead Fathers Club that none of us wanted to join and yet here we all are. I’m glad we have each other. Love to all xx.”

Following her father’s death in 1979, Beckinsale’s mother married director Roy Battersby in 1997. The actress paid tribute to Battersby on Father’s Day, too, thanking him for “taking on a hurt little girl and giving her confidence in her intelligence by immediately treating her as an equal.”