Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 - December 28, 2004) was an American actor best known for his starring role in the Law & Order television series and his musical theater roles.

Biography

He was born Jerome Bernard Orbach on October 20, 1935 in the Bronx, a borough of New York City to an Irish-American mother and a Russian-Jewish father. He was raised Catholic. While he was still a child, his family moved to Mount Vernon, New York, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Pennsylvania, Springfield, Massachusetts and Waukegan, Illinois. He studied at Northwestern University, then went to New York, where he studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

Orbach was an accomplished Broadway and off-Broadway actor. His first major role was that of El Gallo in the original cast of the decades-running hit The Fantasticks. He also starred in Carnival! , Guys and Dolls (Tony Award Best Featured Actor in a Musical nominee), Promises, Promises (Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical), the original productions of Chicago (Tony Award Best Actor in a Musical nominee) and 42nd Street, and the revival of The Cradle Will Rock.

In the 1980s, he shifted to film work, including prominent roles as Jennifer Grey's father in Dirty Dancing, a cold-blooded killer in the Woody Allen drama Crimes and Misdemeanors, and the voice of the candle Lumiere in Disney's animated musical Beauty and the Beast. He starred in the short-lived 1987 crime drama The Law and Harry McGraw (playing a role he reprised as a regular guest star on Murder She Wrote for several years), which foresaw his best-known role of all - Detective Lennie Briscoe in the series Law & Order (1992 - 2004). Orbach also voice acted the character for the video game spin-offs of the series. Orbach was signed to continue in the role on Law & Order: Trial by Jury. He appeared in only the first two episodes of the series, which aired in March of 2005, after his death.

In early December 2004, it was announced that Orbach had been receiving treatment for prostate cancer since Spring 2004; he died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York on December 28. His agent, Robert Malcolm, announced at the time of his death that Orbach had been diagnosed with prostate cancer more than ten years before.

Orbach was married in 1958 to Marta Curro, by whom he had two sons, Anthony Nicholas and Christopher Ben; they divorced in 1975. In 1979, he married Broadway dancer Elaine Cancilla , whom he met while starring in Chicago.

On February 5, 2005, he was posthumously awarded a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series.

Roles

Off-Broadway

• The Fantasticks (1960)
• The Cradle Will Rock (1964 revival)
• Scuba Duba

Broadway

• Threepenny Opera (1955) (replacement for Rome Smith )
• Carnival! (1961)
• Guys and Dolls (1965)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1966)
• The Natural Look (1967)
• Promises, Promises (1968)
• 6 RMS RIV VU (1972)
• Chicago (1975)
• 42nd Street (1980)

Filmography

• Guys and Dolls (1955)
• Cop Hater (1958)
• Mad Dog Call (1961)
• Ensign Pulver (1964)
• John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965)
• The Gang That Shouldn't Shoot Straight (1971)
• A Fan's Notes (1972)
• Fore Play (1975)
• The Sentinel (1977)
• Underground Aces (1981)
• Prince of the City (1981)
• Brewster's Millions (1985)
• The Imagemaker (1986)
• F/X (1986)
• Dirty Dancing (1987)
• Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
• I Love N.Y. (1988)
• Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
• Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
• Dead Women in Lingerie (1991)
• California Casanova (1991)
• Out for Justice (1991)
• Toy Soldiers (1991)
• Delusion (1991)
• Delirious (1991)
• Beauty and the Beast (1991) (voice)
• A Gnome Named Gnorm (1992)
• Straight Talk (1992)
• Universal Solider (1992)
• Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
• The Cemetary Club (1993)
• Temps (1999)
• The Acting Class (2000) (Cameo)
• Chinese Coffee (2000)
• Prince of Central Park (2000)
• Manna from Heaven (2002)
• (2003) (documentary)
• (2003) (documentary)
• Mickey's PhilharMagic (2003) (short subject) (voice)

Television

• Twenty-Four Hours in a Woman's Life (1961)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1967)
• The Special Magic of Herself the Elf (1983)
• An Invasion of Privacy (1983)
• Dream West (1986) (miniseries)
• The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986) (miniseries)
• Out on a Limb (1987)
• Love Among Thieves (1987)
• The Law and Harry McGraw (1987-1988)
• (1989)
• The Flamingo Kid (1989)
• (1990)
• In Defense of a Married Man (1990)
• (1991)
• Neil Simon's Broadway Bound (1992)
• Quiet Killer (1992)
• Mastergate (1992)
• Law & Order (cast member from 1992-2004)
• (1998)
• The Hunt (2001)
• Law & Order: Trial By Jury (cast member in 2005) (filmed up to episode #1.6)

External links

• CNN obituary