Ruth Manning, 84; Veteran Actress Found Fame in TV Ads

Ruth Manning, a stage, screen and television character actress who gained nationwide recognition in the 1980s playing Aunt Harriet in a series of commercials for Kraft Real Mayonnaise, has died.

Manning, who was believed to be 84, died Nov. 19 while auditioning for a TV role and was pronounced dead of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said her agent, Greg Mayo.

A New York native whose career spanned 60 years, Manning spent a decade working in stock and repertory companies before making her Broadway debut in 1950 in Robinson Jeffers’ “The Tower Beyond Tragedy” with Judith Anderson.

She went on to perform featured roles in “The Prisoner of Second Avenue,” “Sticks and Bones” and the musical “Molly” with Kaye Ballard.

She also appeared in stock company productions of “Time for Elizabeth” with Groucho Marx and “Forty Carats” with Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Off-Broadway, Manning created the role of Cora Groves, who has an affair with a younger man, in Lanford Wilson’s “The Rimers of Eldritch” at the Cherry Lane Theatre. And she took over featured roles in long-running productions of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” and Jules Feiffer’s “Little Murders.”

Turning to film and television in the 1970s, she had small roles in, among others, “Audrey Rose,” “Billionaire Boys Club,” “All in the Family,” “Three’s Company” and “ER.”

But it was her 30-second spots for Kraft Real Mayonnaise that changed the lives of Manning and her commercial cohort, actress Norma MacMillan, who played innocent Aunt Martha opposite Manning’s bossy Aunt Harriet.

In the first commercial, the women discovered the gourmet taste of the creamy spread.

But when it came to passing on the news of their find to a relative in Kansas, Manning’s authoritarian-looking Aunt Harriet advised sweet-faced Aunt Martha, “Don’t tell her.”

Manning’s wisecracks, including, “Oh, we’re free for lunch,” ended each commercial, and the actress found people quoting the lines to her and calling her Aunt Harriet.

Although the commercials gave Manning a high level of recognition, she was used to having audiences associate her characters with relatives or friends.

“I have heard that all my life,” she told The Times in 1986. She said people often told her of her roles: “Oh my God, I had a neighbor who reminds me so much of you on that stage.”

A memorial service for Manning, whose survivors include two nephews and a niece, is planned for January.