Ms. Manley, a Bronx native, made her professional stage debut in Maxwell Anderson's Eve of Saint Mark, on Broadway. When Jules Irving and Herbert Blau helmed the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater, she appeared in the Vivian Beaumont Theater stagings of The East Wind (1967), Yerma (1966), The Alchemist (1966), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1966), The Country Wife (1965) and Danton's Death (1965). She also appeared on Broadway in Dorothy Gardner's Eastward in Eden (1947).
In the 1970s Ms. Manley taught at Cal Arts. She had moved to California to be an artist in residence at Stanford. She was co-founder of San Francisco Actors' Theatre with Blau, Irving and Priscilla Pointer.
She authored five plays, two librettos and three books ("My Breath in Art: Acting From Within," "An Actor's Dickens"), according to Variety. Her play, Conjour Woman, was seen at LaMaMa in New York City.
Ms. Manley is survived by three children.