Acclaimed Broadway and film actress Anne Jackson, who spent six weeks in Bermuda in 1976 working alongside husband Eli Wallach, Jaqueline Bisset and Robert Shaw on the treasure hunting thriller The Deep, died this week at the age of 90.

Ms Jackson, who collaborated extensively with her husband of 66 years, making them among the best-known acting couples in American theatre, died on Tuesday at her home in Manhattan.

According to The New York Times, Ms Jackson and Mr Wallach “appeared together 13 times on Broadway, seven times off Broadway, and occasionally in movies and on television, where they did most of their work, both together and apart, in the later years of their careers”.

In 1976 Mr Wallach, perhaps best known for his roles in such movies as The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, was cast as Bermudian sea-dog Adam Coffin in a big-budget adaptation of Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel The Deep.

Coffin was the treacherous sidekick to Mr Shaw’s treasure-hunting St David’s Islander Romer Treece, a character modelled on Bermudian diving legend Teddy Tucker, a longtime friend and mentor to author Mr Benchley.

The Deep told the story of a vacationing couple played by Ms Bisset and Nick Nolte who stumble upon two sunken treasures on Bermuda’s reefs — one 17th-century Spanish gold, the other a fortune in morphine aboard the wreck of a Second World War cargo ship.

The follow-up to Mr Benchley’s first maritime sensation Jaws, made into a blockbuster 1975 film by director Steven Spielberg starring Mr Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, The Deep immediately rose to the top of worldwide best-seller lists when it was published in 1976.

The subsequent film adaptation directed by Peter Yates, shot largely on location in Bermuda, was a box-office smash when it was released in 1977.

“The library scene in which Gail (Ms Bisset) and David (Mr Nolte) are directed towards Romer Treece was a simple interior scene we were due to shoot at the Maritime Museum [now the National Museum of Bermuda],” recalled The Deep producer Peter Guber. “Except for one slight problem: just days before the filming was scheduled, we didn’t have the librarian cast.

“At least this gap turned out to be a blessing in disguise when Anne Jackson, an actress of formidable skill and reputation, graciously agreed to do the role for us — partly because Eli had ended up in a cameo in her own last film and, as she cheerfully put it, she ‘owed him one’.

“Anne, a small, pleasant-looking woman with a powerful presence, could hardly have set out to look less remarkable than she had to appear in The Deep, decked out in a grey wig, cashmere sweater and too-sturdy shoes.

“Yet somehow, in that get-up, with fewer than ten lines to speak, she played the part to cool perfection and absolutely stole the scene.”

While Ms Jackson’s small role ended up being cut from the original theatrical version of The Deep, it was restored for subsequent TV airings and home-video releases of the film.

The Deep ended up becoming something of a family affair for Ms Jackson and Mr Wallach with son Peter, who accompanied his parents to Bermuda, being cast as a younger version of his father’s Adam Coffin character in a brief flashback sequence.

A Tony Award-nominee for her role in writer Paddy Chayefsky’s 1956 Broadway drama Middle of the Night, Ms Jackson’s professional collaboration with Mr Wallach, who died in 2014, spanned almost half a century.

From the early 1950s to 2000 they appeared together in classics by George Bernard Shaw, Tennessee Williams and Eugène Ionesco as well as offbeat comedies by Murray Schisgal.

Pennsylvania-born Ms Jackson also had memorable roles in such movies as Dirty Dingus Magee and director Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and appeared in TV shows including The Untouchables, Marcus Welby, MD and Law & Order.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘Sorry for your loss,’” said Peter Wallach this week. “Actually, the part I don’t accept is the loss part because it was a gift.

“My parents gave this tremendous gift, which they gave to the world and they gave to their children.”

Aside from her son, Ms Jackson is survived by two daughters, Roberta Wallach and Katherine Wallach, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.