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| Susan Ruttan as Mrs. Gil Cunningham in the episode "That Blasted Cunningham" in Season 11 of "The Jeffersons". | ||||
| Personal Information | ||||
| Gender: | Female | |||
| Also known as | Mrs. Gil Cunningham | |||
| Occupation/ Career: |
Houswife/Cunningham Cleaners owner/heir after death of husband | |||
| Character description: |
inherits husband's business after his death, revealed to the scheming, conniving force behind the competition between husband Gil and George Jefferson in the dry-cleaning wars they had | |||
| Spouse(s): | Gil Cunningham | |||
| Character information | ||||
| Appeared on: | The Jeffersons | |||
| Episodes appeared in: | "That Blasted Cunningham" in Season 11 | |||
| Character played by: | Susan Ruttan | |||
Mrs. Cunningham was the wife/widow of Gil Cunningham (which was played on the series in one episode by Paul B. Price), owner of Cunningham Cleaners and George Jefferson's chief rival in the cleaning buisness in the Season 11 episode of The Jeffersons titled "That Blasted Cunningham". The part of Mrs. Cunningham was played by actress Susan Ruttan, who perhaps is best known for her role as Roxanne Melman on the long-running NBC-TV series L.A. Law (1986–1993).
About Cunningham's widow[]
In the episode That Blasted Cunningham, it is revealed that Gil's wife had been the motivator behind the whole competition between Jefferson Cleaners and Cunningham Cleaners all along. In his will, Gil left George the bowling trophy he won vs. Jefferson Cleaners, with a letter inside warning George to never trust her because “she put the ‘cunning’ in Cunningham.”
Gil Cunningham was later proven right as Mrs. Cunningham, under the guise of still grieving over his passing, in asking George for some of his business advice, stole the idea from an ad campaign which he was devising for Jefferson Cleaners, which stated that for every pound of laundry a customer would send in to be cleaned, they would be reimbursed one dollar. But in the end, after finding Gil's letter, George turned the tables on the ever-scheming Mrs. Cunningham by bringing her all of the laundry from all seven of his cleaning stores and thereby forcing her to pay him a dollar for every pound, which amounted to $10,000.