Publicist had a turbulent marriage to comedy legend

Tony Hancock’s widow, Freddie, has died in Manhattan at the age of 92.

Their marriage lasted for only three years, from 1965 to 1968, with Freddie struggling with the comedian’s  drinking and self-destructive behaviour.

They had their first screaming row just three weeks in to their marriage, which resulted in Tony returning to spend the night with his first wife, Cicely.

When drunk, he could be abusive toward Freddie and once broke her nose when she  tried to stop him from reaching for a bottle. She attempted suicide several times, overdosing on Hancock’s pills.

She would later say: ‘I thought in my twisted mind I could bring him to his senses. I though my death, which wouldn’t harm a lot of people, would make him realise what a wonderful talent he was wasting.’

When she finally had enough and left him, Hancock embarked on an affair with John Le Mesurier’s wife, Joan.

The Hancocks’  divorce was just about to be finalised, on the grounds of his adultery, when the comedian took his own life with barbiturates and alcohol in Sydney in June 1968, at the age of 44. She never remarried.

Freda Ross, as she then was, began her relationship with Tony in 1957, while he was still married to Cicely. At the time Freddie was the comic’s publicist, as part of her roster of leading British entertainers of the time, including Benny Hill, Harry H. Corbett, Dick Emery, Bob Monkhouse and Terry Scott.

Later Freddie would be engaged by Universal film studios, which hired her to promote the likes of Shelley Winters and Rock Hudson in the UK. Her client list would also go on to include  Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews, Gerry and the Pacemakers,  Stirling Moss and many more.

She moved to New York, where she became a marketing consultant in the entertainment industry and founded an East Coast wing of Bafta. In 2002 she was appointed an MBE for ‘services to UK-US cultural understanding’.

In 1969 she wrote  a biography of Tony and later she would recall occasionally watch a video of her favourite episode of Hancock’s Half Hour, The Ladies Man.

She later recalled in an interview with the Daily Telegraph: ’When I see him doing that ridiculous dance with Arthur Mullard, then I remember Tony without his faults. I think to myself, "You can still make me laugh, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock".’

And she acknowledged that she would forever be associated with  her hsuband, commenting: ‘Mostly it’s an honour, sometimes it’s a real bugger. 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.’

Last night the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society tweeted: ‘Very sad to hear that Hancock's widow, Freddie Ross Hancock, passed away on 27 November aged 92. She was a great friend of the society, attending several events. At one, she bought Champagne for everyone, saying "I love meeting you all as you know more about my life than I do!"'

» Daily Telegraph obituary

• Because of a captioning error at a photo library, an earlier version of this story carried an incorrect picture.

Published: 1 Dec 2022