Share and Follow
Bereft Kate Beckinsale was grief-stricken when her step-father Roy, who’d survived bomb raids during World War II, died this month aged 87 – and now she says BAFTA is “breaking her heart all over again”. The bad news for the Prisoner’s Daughter actress is that staff couldn’t “guarantee” her former film director step-dad would be included in their In Memoriam, even though he’d previously won a BAFTA himself.
Furious Kate took to Instagram ahead of this year’s swish February ceremony, attaching a photo of him clutching his gong, and lamenting that he wasn’t regarded as “worth a mention”. She raged to her 5.6 million followers: “Here is a photo just after I presented my stepdad with the lifetime achievement BAFTA for his incredible work as a director in television!
“Today BAFTA told me they ‘could not guarantee’ he would be included in their ‘in memoriam’ tribute, to honour the industry members we have lost. So a man dead less than a week somehow has to audition in front of a committee after a decades-long career (in which he has been awarded from said organisation the highest accolade they have) to decide IF his death is worth mentioning!”
She continued: “That has broken my heart all over again. I am paralysed, sick and sickened and I will honour him and his work every day of my life.” Kate also took the opportunity to name-check the television shows her father had directed, including Colin Welland’s Leeds United!, which tells the story of the first ever all-female strike in the clothing trade.
She also mentioned: “Inspector Morse, King of the Ghetto starring a very young and very brilliant Tim Roth, A Touch of Frost, the first and only Edward Bond play ever written for television starring Bernard Hill and the late, mesmerising Charlotte Coleman.” He worked on the first seven episodes of the “groundbreaking” Tomorrow’s World, as well as the documentary The Body, featuring music by Roger Waters and commentary by poet Adrian Mitchell.
With such a long list of industry credits, including “countless others” she hadn’t mentioned, Kate was perplexed and hurt to learn that his death might not receive a mention.
She then addressed BAFTA directly to blast the awards ceremony for the “cold email” she’d received from staff.
“Oh and while I am at it, yes it is my mum briefly in the Netflix show Fool Me Once, for those who asked,” she explained.
“And she has been gracefully and quietly dealing with stage four cancer for the last six years and just lost her husband so thanks again, BAFTA for your horribly cold email,” she concluded.
Behind the scenes, Kate had been caring for both of them, with fans only discovering what was going on thanks to glimpses posted to her Instagram account.
For instance, Kate rushed from an appearance at the Golden Globes earlier this month straight to her step-dad’s hospital bedside, without so much as pausing to change out of her sparkly silver gown.
He had been battling two types of cancer, followed by suffering a “massive stroke” – and heartbroken Kate announced his death on Monday, lamenting that she’d “fought hard” for him, then apologising that she’d “lost”.
Kate is thought to have shared a very close bond with Roy, whom her actress mum Judy married in 1997, after her father Richard died himself in the late 1970s.
Share and Follow
Source: NewsFinale
