Freddie Ross Hancock MBE (born Freda Ross, 7 April 1930) is a British-born, New York-based entertainment industry marketing consultant and the founder of the East Coast branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...

 http://www.baftaeastcoast.com/academy/trustees.

Ross started her career in the British entertainment industry as a publicist and/or agent for some of Britain's leading entertainers of the 1950s and 1960s. Initially she focused on comedic performers such as Benny Hill

Benny Hill

Benny Hill was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.-Early life:...

, Harry H. Corbett

Harry H. Corbett

Harry H. Corbett OBE was an English actor.Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 70s...

, Dick Emery

Dick Emery

Richard Gilbert "Dick" Emery was an English comedian and actor. Beginning on radio in the 1950s, an eponymous television series ran from 1963 to 1981. He was the brother of Ann Emery.-Life and career:...

, Bob Monkhouse

Bob Monkhouse

Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host...

, Terry Scott

Terry Scott

Owen John "Terry" Scott was an English actor and comedian who appeared in seven Carry On films. He also appeared in BBC1's popular domestic sitcom Terry and June with June Whitfield...

, Hugh Lloyd

Hugh Lloyd

Hugh Lewis Lloyd, MBE was an English actor who made his name in television and film comedy from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was best known for appearances in Hugh and I and other sitcoms of the 1960s.-Life:...

, Sheila Hancock

Sheila Hancock

Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE is an English actress and author.-Early life:Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is seven years older...

 and Tony Hancock

Tony Hancock

Anthony John "Tony" Hancock was an English actor and comedian.-Early life and career:Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, England, but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in...

. She represented Tony Hancock from 1954 onwards, helping guide him to his greatest public and critical successes on radio and television. The couple started their romantic relationship in 1957 and after the comedian divorced his first wife, they married in December 1965. However, their marriage was affected by Tony Hancock's drinking and self-destructive traits.

Unable to save Tony Hancock from his chronic alcoholism, she initiated a divorce in 1968. His personal and professional life spiraling downwards, Tony Hancock committed suicide while working in Australia in June 1968 before the divorce was finalised.

She was in demand for her services and was also engaged to promote films and stage shows. Clients included Universal-International (the then UK arm of Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures

-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...

) - which hired her to promote Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...

, Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson

Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

, Piper Laurie

Piper Laurie

Piper Laurie is an American actress of stage and screen known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the films The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations...

 among many - and the Coral Leisure Group.

Other entertainers, actors, musicians, writers, sports personalities and celebrities who engaged Hancock while she worked in the UK include Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...

, Carlo Ponti

Carlo Ponti

Carlo Ponti was an Italian film producer with over 140 production credits, and the husband of Italian movie star Sophia Loren.-Career:...

, Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews

Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...

, Theo Bikel, Topol

Chaim Topol

Chaim Topol , often billed simply as Topol, is an Israeli theatrical and film performer, actor, writer and producer. He has been nominated for an Oscar and Tony Award, and has won two Golden Globes.-Early life:...

, Billie Whitelaw

Billie Whitelaw

Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...

, Jim Dale

Jim Dale

Jim Dale, MBE is an English actor, voice artist, singer and songwriter. He is best known in the United Kingdom for his many appearances in the Carry On series of films and in the US for narrating the Harry Potter audiobook series, for which he received two Grammy Awards, and the ABC series Pushing...

, Keith Waterhouse

Keith Waterhouse

Keith Spencer Waterhouse CBE was a novelist, newspaper columnist, and the writer of many television series.-Biography:Keith Waterhouse was born in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

, Willis Hall

Willis Hall

Willis Hall was an English playwright and radio and television writer who drew on his working class roots in Leeds for much of his writings....

, Ted Heath

Ted Heath (bandleader)

Ted Heath, musician and big band leader, led Britain's greatest post-war big band recording more than 100 albums and selling over 20 million records...

, Ray Martin

Ray Martin

Ray Martin may refer to:*Ray Martin , English association football player*Ray Martin , Australian rules footballer*Ray Martin , United Kingdom...

, Norrie Paramor

Norrie Paramor

Norrie Paramor was a British record producer, composer, arranger, and orchestral conductor.Although the term "producer" was not in circulation at the time Paramor started producing records , he effectively began this role in 1952 when he became Recording Director for EMI's Columbia...

, Eddie Calvert

Eddie Calvert

Eddie Calvert was an English trumpeter, who enjoyed his greatest successes in the 1950s. Calvert had his first United Kingdom, number one instrumental single in 1954, with "Oh Mein Papa".-Biography:...

, Rose Brennan, Janie Marden, Gerry and the Pacemakers, racing driver Stirling Moss

Stirling Moss

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss, OBE FIE is a former racing driver from England...

, Wimbledon champion Angela Buxton

Angela Buxton

Angela Buxton is an English tennis player. She won the women's doubles title at both the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1956 with Althea Gibson.-Tennis accomplishments:...

, and Australian golfer Peter Thomson.

In November 1988, she organised the official 80th birthday celebrations given in New York for British broadcaster Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke

Alfred Alistair Cooke KBE was a British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992...

 by the BBC for which she secured the musical services of James Galway

James Galway

- External links : IMGArtists.com 15 September 2008. AllAboutJazz.com 5 August 2008.*...

 and Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

 and a personal video greeting from President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Hancock served as the Senior Vice President of Acquisitions for the movie distributor American Video Films She has been the US representative of the UK's leading bottled water company Highland Spring

Highland Spring

Highland Spring is the United Kingdom's leading supplier of bottled water. It produces still and sparkling water at its factory in Blackford, Perth and Kinross, Scotland, although despite the name this area is not actually within the Scottish Highlands...

. since 1996.

In her role as Founder and Vice Chairman of BAFTA East Coast, Hancock was the primary instigator and facilitator in the appointment of film mogul Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein, CBE is an American film producer and movie studio chairman. He is best known as co-founder of Miramax Films. He and his brother Bob have been co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, their film production company, since 2005...

 as a Commander of the British Empire

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 for Weinstein's services to the British film industry. Hancock also arranged the investiture ceremony held in Manhattan in November 2004.

She was appointed Vice Chairman of the US wing of the Royal Television Society

Royal Television Society

The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

.

In 1969 she wrote Hancock, a biography of her late husband, Tony Hancock, with the journalist David Nathan

David Nathan (journalist)

David Nathan was a British journalist.Born in Manchester, he joined the Daily Herald in 1955. Initially employed as a general reporter, he became a drama critic and entertainment writer on the newspaper...

. In a 1991 BBC television dramatisation of the life of Tony Hancock, she is played by the British actress Frances Barber

Frances Barber

Frances Barber is an Olivier Award-nominated English actress with a long and distinguished stage career. She has also appeared in numerous television productions...

.