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British publicist and marketing consultant Freddie Ross Hancock, whose clients included Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews and Benny Hill, and helped bring the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to New York, has died in the city at the age of 92.

Born Freda Ross in 1930 in North London, she learned the public relations business working for the Holland America cruise line for two years, after which she joined the Universal Film Corporation of America as assistant head of publicity in the U.K.

In the early 1950s she set up her own publicity firm, Freda Ross Associates, representing performers such as Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Bob Monkhouse, Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd. She met comedian and actor Tony Hancock in 1954 when she was 24, and persuaded him to take her on as his publicist.

In 1959 Ross and Hancock began an affair, although he was married, but they lived together openly from...

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Freddie Ross Hancock, the British marketing consultant and publicist who represented Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews, Benny Hill, Theodore Bikel and Jim Dale and helped bring the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to New York, has died. She was 92.

Ross Hancock died Sunday at her home in Manhattan, friend and former Warner Bros. executive Luke Fontneau announced.

Another of her clients was popular English comedian and actor Tony Hancock. They began a romantic relationship in 1957 while he was married and wed in December 1965, but soon after she filed for divorce, he died by suicide in 1968 at age 44.

After Hancock’s death, she moved to the U.S., where she worked as an acquisitions executive for American Video Films, served as vice chairman of the U.S. wing of the Royal Television Society and consulted for companies including Miramax.

She was honored as...

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Alex's trek through the film roles of actors who've played the Doctor reaches Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy...

Read the previous part in this series, Doctor Who: the film careers of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, here.

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