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Exclusive: How’s this for an IP play?

Alloy Entertainment is partnering with singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes on a feature adaptation of his classic 1979 tune, “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).”

While the film’s official logline is under wraps, the project will be a romantic comedy produced by Alloy’s President and Chief Creative Officer, Leslie Morgenstein, and EVP Film, Elysa Koplovitz Dutton. Holmes will serve as executive producer. The team is out now to potential writers for the project.

Released as part of Holmes’ fifth solo album, Partners in Crime, “Escape” focuses on a singles ad placed by a woman in search of a relationship, and the man who finds the ad in the paper. The song’s famous lyrics include: “If you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain, if you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain, if you like making love at midnight,...

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...

The PBS SoCal special “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors” is among the nominees for the 67th annual Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards.

The interview special that features pairings of prominent actors discussing their craft is a contender in the entertainment programming category. “Actors on Actors,” a co-production between Variety and PBS SoCal, will vie against Ktla’s “Live From the Oscars” and Kcbs/Kcal’s “Lexus: Music Uncovered” series.

In the competitive investigative reporting category, Fox’s Kttv is up against Kcbs and Univision’s Kmex, which has two nominations. Hard news reporting noms went to Kcbs/Kcal’s David Goldstein and Catherine Gelera; Kvea’s Azucena Gomez; Kmex’s Antonio Valverde; and separate noms for Knbc’s Robert Kovacik and Tony Shin.

In the competition for the three regularly scheduled newscast categories, there are no nominations; all stations that submit entries are contenders. The morning and daily newscast races this year are among Kttv,...