THE stars will be coming out at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute next month when actress Jacqueline Bissett and director Peter Yates fly in to both mark the 25th anniversary of the Bermuda-based box office sensation The Deep and launch a major fund-raising project for the marine foundation.

Based on the number one bestseller by BUEI adviser Peter Benchley - it was his first book after the phenomenal success of the novel and film Jaws - The Deep was shot largely on location in Bermuda during the summer of 1976. Released in 1977, the action-adventure film went on to become the second highest grossing movie of that year behind the original Star Wars.

"Jacqueline Bissett, who played Gail Berke, the female lead in The Deep, has graciously agreed to attend our festivities," said BUEI director Wendy Tucker. "Academy Award winner Louis Gossett, Jr., who co-starred as the villain Henri Cloche, would very much like to attend but his agent has told us that his appearance here will depend on his schedule. We very much hope he will be make it.

"Peter Yates, the British director who also made the classic Steve McQueen thriller Bullitt which featured Ms Bissett in a small role,will be in attendance along with the author Peter Benchley, a long-time friend of Bermuda as well as a member of the BUEI's advisory board."

The Deep celebrations will be held on May 16 and 17 at a pair of back-to-back galas that will kick off the BUEI's education endowment campaign.

"We want to raise $3 million to set up as an endowment to support all of our various educational programmes," said Ms Tucker.

"Given last year marked the 25th anniversary of The Deep's release and its plot deals entirely with both underwater exploration and Bermuda, we thought it would be both appropriate and fun to link our fund-raising activities to the film's silver anniversary."

The Deep revolves around a couple vacationing in Bermuda - Ms Bissett and two-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte - who discover both 17th-century Spanish treasure and a cache of World War Two-era morphine ampules on a dangerous reef that has become a graveyard for countless ships over the years.

The drugs attract the interest of Haitian criminal mastermind Henri Cloche (Louis Gossett, Jr.), who controls Bermuda's underworld through a combination of strong-arm tactics and Voodoo rituals designed to intimidate his adversaries.

The couple join forces with St. David's lighthouse keeper and treasure hunter Romer Treece (played by the late Robert Shaw) to confound Cloche's plans to plunder and market the heroin while salvaging the Spanish treasure trove.

"On May 16 we will be holding our gala event," said Ms Tucker. "There will be a cocktail party here that will be attended by members of The Deep's cast and crew, followed by a screening of the film and then a silent auction that will include memorabilia from the film as well as other items - including the original artwork for the new mural in the BUEI's Teddy Tucker Shipwreck Gallery depicting the sailing ship that we originally referred to as 'The Frenchman' but which we now believe was called Le Union just before it was wrecked on Bermuda's reefs in 1763. The artwork is by the British painter Christian Huband who is gaining an impressive reputation for his maritime-themed artwork.

"On May 17 we will be holding another cocktail party that The Deep alumni will attend and tickets to that event will be $30."

Ms Tucker said that BUEI staff are in the process of decorating the East Broadway foundation with props, still photographs and other Deep-themed memorabilia for the fund-raising events.

"Any Bermudians who have behind-the-scenes photographs or other mementos relating to the making of the film that they would like to loan us so that we can display them should contact me at 292-7219," said Ms Tucker. "Even as we speak, we are in the process of unpacking a 27-foot mechanical squid that will hang from the ceiling over the main lobby."

The Deep was inspired by former National Geographic writer Peter Benchley's longstanding friendship with Ms Tucker's parents, legendary diver Teddy Tucker and his wife Edna, to whom the novel is dedicated. Diver Romer Treece is modelled on the Bermudian treasure hunter to the extent that some dialogue in the novel is lifted verbatim from an interview Mr. Benchley conducted with Mr. Tucker for a 1971 National Geographic feature on Bermuda.

In his behind-the-scenes book about the making of the film, Inside The Deep, published to coincide with the film's release, tyro producer Peter Guber - who later became president of Sony/Columbia Pictures - said Teddy Tucker helped to add both texture and authenticity to the movie when he was hired as a consultant.

"Teddy Tucker is out there on the ocean with us every day," said Guber. "Teddy relishes the role of Ye Olde Salty Sea Dog, which is OK with us since he performs it to perfection. In fact, Robert Shaw had prepared for his role of Treece back in Ireland with the help of tapes of Teddy's lilting Bermudian accent describing diving methods, anecdotes and philosophies gleaned in 20 years of ocean exploration. He educates the crew: 'Eat a piece of sponge. It'll expand in your stomach. Sure it'll make ya belch - but you won't be seasick!'

"He enthralls us with accounts of his own experiences: 'raptures of the deep', for example - that strange euphoria that overtakes divers as they descend beyond 200 feet deep or so . . . Teddy's delivery, matter of fact yet magnetic hypnotised crew members."

The Deep was shot at various locations around Bermuda including Marley Beach, Ariel Sands, St. David's, the Bermuda Maritime Museum and Somerset Village. An almost full-scale set of St. David's lighthouse was built on Coney Island. Sound stages for the movie were constructed in the cavernous 19th-century warehouses at Dockyard that adjoin the old Royal Naval Victualling Yard. Dozens of Bermudians were employed by the film's co-producer, Columbia Pictures, to work either in front of the cameras as extras or in various capacities on the crew.

What was at the time the largest underwater set ever constructed in the world was built in Sandys near the entrance to Dockyard so that film-makers could better control the staging and lighting of sub-sea scenes.

The poster art for the film, featuring Jacqueline Bissett in a clinging wet T-shirt and bikini briefs, became a pop culture icon and turned the actress into a major sex symbol, somewhat to her embarrassment.

Her image from The Deep was featured on a pin-up that outsold everything on the market except a Farrah Fawcett poster. It also inspired the North American craze for wet T-shirt competitions during college student Spring Break activities in Florida.

lTickets for the two "Deep Party" events will go on sale at the BUEI admissions office on April 28. The admissions office can be contacted at 297-7314.