In Remembrance: Jerry Orbach

    Jerry Orbach, the character actor perhaps best known for his 12 year run as New York City police detective Lennie Briscoe on the television series Law & Order, has passed away on Tuesday December 28, 2004 in Manhattan. He was 69.

     Born on October 20, 1935 in New York, NY, Orbach came from a show business family. His father Leon was a former vaudevillian while his mother Emily sang on radio. His father had shifted careers to restaurant management and the family moved about the country, eventually settling in Waukegan, Illinois when he was 12. By this time, Orbach was already displaying an aptitude for performance, having participated in various school productions. Following graduating high school at age 16, he apprenticed at the Chevy Chase theatre in Wheeling, Illinois before studying drama at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University’s drama school. Unable to afford tuition his junior year in the fall of 1955, he dropped out and headed to New York City.

     In December 1955 he landed a role in a major off-Broadway revival of Three Penny Opera. Although he would go on to study at the Actor’s Studio under founder Lee Strasberg, he would later complain that it was often hard to convince producers that he was more than just a song and dance man and could handle more dramatically weighty roles. In 1960 he originated the role of El Gallo in the long running Off-Broadway hit The Fantasticks. Orbach would go on to star in a string hit Broadway musicals including Carnival!, Promises, Promises, the original production of Chicago, 42^nd Street and a revival of Annie Get Your Gun along side of Ethel Merman. He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1965 for Guys and Dolls and in 1976 for Chicago. He won a Tony Award in 1969 for his work in Promises, Promises and was inducted into the Broadway Hall Of Fame in 1999.

     Orbach made his film debut in the 1958 in Cop Hater playing the leader of a street gang. In 1971 he headlined the adaptation of the Jimmy Breslin comedic crime novel The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight with a young Robert DeNiro. Orbach also contributed strong supporting performances in films such as Prince Of The City (1981), Brewster’s Millions (1985), F/X (1986), Last Exit To Brooklyn and Crimes and Misdemeanors (both 1989). In 1987 he appeared as the doting father of Jennifer Grey’s Baby in the hit romance Dirty Dancing. He loaned his voice to the character of Lumiere, a living candelabra for Disney’s 1991 animated hit Beauty and the Beast. He would return to voice the character for several direct to home video releases and the House of Mouse Saturday morning cartoon series from Disney. In 1992, Orbach joined the cast of Law & Order and remained with the show for 12 seasons. He was currently in production of the Law & Order spinoff series Trial By Jury due to premier in March 2005.