AGENT, PUBLICIST AND WIDOW
Born Freda Ross, her parents were Jewish. Her father was a bookmaker. She was always known as ‘Freddie’.
After leaving school, she went to secretarial college and then got a job in Public Relations (PR), working for the Holland America cruise line.

Freddie stayed there for two years before joining the Universal Film Corporation as Assistant Head of Publicity UK. She looked after the interests of film and television stars such as Shelley Winters, Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie.
Freddie also worked for the Coral Leisure Group.
She was a warm, engaging character, full of nervous energy – but also extremely volatile.

Freddie was so successful in her job that she went freelance in the early 1950s, forming ‘Freddie Ross Associates’. Her mother was the only associate. The company operated out of her Dover Square flat in London.
Freddie quickly built up a stable of stars for whom she was agent. They included Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Harry H. Corbett, Bob Monkhouse, Hugh Lloyd, Terry Scott, Sheila Hancock and band leader Ted Heath.
In 1954, she went to Blackpool, to arrange a tour for the Ted Heath Orchestra. There, in the bar of her hotel, she met comedian Tony Hancock. He was appearing alongside Vera Lynn and Jimmy Edwards.
She remembered, “Tony staggered into the bar. He looked a bit like a bloodhound with his heavy brow and hangdog expression. I told him if I had a talent like his, I wouldn’t hang my head low, I would hold my head high”.
The first present she ever gave Hancock was a pair of cufflinks with the last part of this engraved on them.
She then persuaded him to allow her to be his agent -and she immediately got him organised.
Within three weeks, she had cleared two years of unanswered fan mail. Freddie bought Hancock six new suits and persuaded him to have a haircut. She even flew to Paris where Tony was holidaying with his wife, Cicely. They had run out of money, so she took them extra cash – ‘Spending money’, she called it.

By 1957, Freddie and Tony had started a romance.
Tony Hancock eventually left his wife for Freddie. However, she was aware, even before they started living together that his heavy drinking was becoming a problem.
Freddie was often written into his scripts, either as a clairvoyant called Madame Freda, or as a passing stranger called Fred.
In November 1964, the couple held a party in a Mayfair hotel to announce their engagement. In the middle of the party, Hancock announced to the crowd that he was leaving Freddie and going back to his wife.
Freddie fled from the hotel, went back to the Savoy where she was staying and took an overdose.

Hancock didn’t leave her – but one month later, on Christmas Day, he threw her out of their flat. She had no keys and was wearing nothing, other than a coat.
Freddie tried to stop him drinking but received lots of abuse. One day, he hit her so hard with a karate chop, that he broke her nose and perforated her ear drum.
Hancock was full of remorse and took her to hospital. She was so angry she got a telephone and phoned a restaurant, ordering food for everybody in the ward – 24 salt beef sandwiches and 12 Chinese takeaways. She charged it all to Hancock’s account.
Tony then went off to the USA to try and kick start his career there. He got a bit part in a third-rate movie but got so drunk that he tried to seduce the lead actor’s wife. He was kicked off set and Freddie was phoned and told to fly to America to collect him.
Hancock became extremely jealous of Freddie, closely watching her every movement. Nevertheless, her agency prospered, and new clients flocked to her. They included Sophia Loren, Carlo Ponti, Julie Andrews, Jim Dale, Keith Waterhouse, Stirling Moss, Angela Buxton (Wimbledon winner) and Gerry and the Pacemakers – and many, many more.
Hancock checked into a sanitorium to try to dry out. Freddie visited him every day, but once he was so vile to her that she attempted suicide again.
Freddie’s parents begged her to leave Hancock but she always forgave him. They were finally married in 1965.
That same year, Tony announced he was leaving her for Joan Le Mesurier, the wife of his close friend, actor John Le Mesurier.
Freddie went home to her parents and refused to answer any of his letters or phone calls as he begged for her forgiveness.
She filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery. Hancock took himself off to Australia to try and resurrect his career.
The divorce came through in 1968. Three days later, Tony Hancock committed suicide.

Freddie was very ill throughout the next year and needed surgery. When she recovered, in 1969, she moved to New York. She kept running her agency.
She also released a book about her husband entitled ‘Hancock’. It was a best seller.
In November 1988, Freddie organised the 80th birthday celebrations for veteran broadcaster Alastair Cooke at the Masterpiece Theatre in New York. Leonard Bernstein and James Galway were scheduled to perform, although the latter forgot his flute. There was a video message from President Ronald Reagan.
By the 1990s, Freddie was the Senior Vice President of Acquisitions for movie distributors American Video Films. She kept this job for two decades.
In 1991, her book ‘Hancock’, was turned into a TV film. She was played by actress Frances Barber.
Meanwhile, Freddie worked at promoting British television and films in the USA. It led to her founding the East Coast (USA) branch of BAFTA (the British Academy of Film and TV Arts).
For this, she was awarded an MBE in 2002, “For services to the UK and US cultural understanding”.
Freddie also pushed hard for video mogul Harvey Weinstein to receive a CBE in 2003 and arranged his investiture in Manhattan in 2004 (Weinstein was stripped of his CBE in 2020 when he was convicted of sexual offences).

She was also the Vice Chairperson of the US wing of the Royal Television Society.
Freddie never remarried. She admitted that Tony Hancock’s programmes still made her laugh. She said despite all her achievements, her life was defined by her marriage to him. “Everyone remembers Tony with affection and I’m glad about that. But life with a genius isn’t about the hilarity, the on-stage applause. The reality wasn’t like that.”
RIP – Remained In Partnership