Anne Jackson

Anne Jackson (September 3, 1925 – April 12, 2016) was an American actress whose career spanned stage, screen, and television across more than five decades. Born in Millvale, Pennsylvania, she was the youngest of three daughters of Stella Germaine (née Murray) and John Ivan Jackson, a barber. Her mother was of Irish Catholic descent, and her father, whose original surname was Jakšeković, had emigrated from Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary, in 1918. When Jackson was eight years old, the family relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where she attended Franklin K. Lane High School.

Jackson pursued her professional training in New York at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio. She made her Broadway debut in 1944 and remained active on Broadway through 1994, accumulating a wide range of stage credits over that period. Her Broadway appearances included The Flowering Peach, Cafe Crown, A Need for Less Expertise, The Cherry Orchard, and King Henry V, as well as productions such as Summer and Smoke, Arms and the Man, Luv, The Waltz of the Toreadors, Mr. Peters' Connections, and Lost in Yonkers. In 1956, she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work in Paddy Chayefsky's Middle of the Night. Seven years later, in 1963, she earned an Obie Award for Best Actress for her performances in two Off-Broadway productions, The Typists and The Tiger.

Her screen work included the films The Tiger Makes Out, The Secret Life of an American Wife, How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life, Lovers and Other Strangers, Dirty Dingus Magee, Folks!, and The Shining. On television, Jackson appeared across a broad range of programs, among them Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Philco Television Playhouse, Studio One, The Untouchables, The Defenders, Gunsmoke, Marcus Welby M.D., Rhoda, The Facts of Life, Highway to Heaven, Law and Order, and ER. She also narrated an episode of the PBS series Reading Rainbow featuring Stellaluna.

On March 5, 1948, Jackson married actor Eli Wallach, with whom she frequently co-starred on stage and screen. They had three children: Peter, Katherine, and Roberta. Wallach died on June 24, 2014. Jackson later taught at the HB Studio in Manhattan and continued to take on acting roles. She died at her Manhattan home on April 12, 2016, at the age of 90. In March 2017, the Harry Ransom Center announced the acquisition of her archive alongside her husband's, with the collection opening for research in 2018.