Information about Jerry Orbach

Jerome Bernard Orbach (October 20 1935 – December 28 2004) was an American actor best known for his starring role as Det. Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and for his musical theater roles.

Early life

Orbach was born in the Bronx, the only child of Emily Olexy (a Polish American Roman Catholic) and the late Leon Orbach (a German Jew of Sephardic descent). He was reared as a Roman Catholic.

Throughout childhood, Orbach moved frequently: Mount Vernon, New York; Wilkes-Barre, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Waukegan, Illinois. He studied drama at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University. He then went to New York, where he studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

Career

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!, the musical version of the movie Lili. He also starred in a revival of Guys and Dolls (Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical), Promises, Promises (Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical), the original productions of Chicago (Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical) and 42nd Street, and a revival of The Cradle Will Rock. He made his film debut in 1955 in an uncredited bit part in the movie version of Guys and Dolls[1] - he plays a barber shop customer during the musical number, "The Oldest Established Permanant Floating Crap Game" and is given a solo during one of the song's "Nathan, Nathan Detroit!!" choruses. Orbach made occasional film and TV appearances into the 1970s.

In the 1980s, he shifted to film and TV work on a more full-time basis. Prominent roles included: a corrupt police detective in Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City; Jennifer Grey's father in Dirty Dancing; a cold-blooded killer in the Woody Allen drama Crimes and Misdemeanors; and the voice of the candelabra Lumière in Disney's animated musical Beauty and the Beast (a character he would reprise in every video sequel, as well as the House of Mouse TV series).

He starred in the short-lived 1987 crime drama The Law and Harry McGraw, in a role he later reprised as a regular guest star on Murder, She Wrote. He joined the cast of Law & Order in 1992 as wisecracking police detective Lennie Briscoe. He remained on the show until 2004. (He had previously appeared in a guest role as a defense attorney in the season two episode "The Wages of Love".) Orbach also voice acted the character for the video game spin-offs of the series. Orbach was signed to continue in the role on , but appeared in only the first two episodes of the series. Both episodes aired in March 2005, after his death. The fifth episode of the series, "Baby Boom", was dedicated to his memory.

Personal life

Orbach was married in 1958 to Marta Curro, with 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.

Orbach lived in a high-rise off Eighth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen and was a fixture in that Manhattan neighborhood's restaurants and shops. His glossy publicity photo hangs in Ms. Buffy's French Cleaners, and he was a regular at some of the Italian restaurants nearby. As of 2007, the intersection of 8th Avenue and 53rd Street was renamed in honor of Orbach. The plans had been met with some resistance by local planning boards, but these were overcome due to his popularity and love of the Big Apple.^[1]

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, 2004. His agent, Robert Malcolm, announced at the time of his death that Orbach's prostate cancer had been diagnosed more than 10 years before. The day after his death, the marquees on Broadway were dimmed in mourning, one of the highest honors of the American theatre world.

In addition to his sons and both wives, Orbach was survived by his mother.

Honors

Orbach was named a "Living Landmark", along with fellow Law & Order castmate Sam Waterston, by the New York Landmarks Conservancy in 2002. He quipped that the honor meant "that they can't tear me down".

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

Orbach was an eye donor; his eyes saved two people from blindness.^[2]

On September 18, 2007, a portion of 53rd Street, near Eighth Avenue, in New York City, was renamed in Orbach's honor. ^[3]

Theatre 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 Coll (1961)
• Ensign Pulver (1964)
• John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965)
• The Gang That Couldn'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)
• Out On A Limb(TV)....Mort Viner'' (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 Soldier (1992)
• Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
• The Cemetery Club (1993)
• Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996) (voice)
• Temps (1999)
• The Acting Class (2000) (Cameo)
• Chinese Coffee (2000)
• Prince of Central Park (2000)
• Manna from Heaven (film) (2002)
• (2003) (documentary)
• (2003) (documentary)
• Mickey's PhilharMagic (2003) (short subject) (voice)

Television work

• Twenty-Four Hours in a Woman's Life (1961)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1967)
• Neil Simon's Plaza Suite (1982)
• The Special Magic of Herself the Elf (1983)
• An Invasion of Privacy (1983)
• Murder, She Wrote (1985-1991) - Harry McGraw
• Dream West (1986) (miniseries)
• The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986) (animated)
• Out on a Limb (1987)
• Love Among Thieves (1987)
• Tales from the Darkside (1987) (guest star) - Robert
• The Law and Harry McGraw (1987-1988) - Harry McGraw
• (1989)
• The Flamingo Kid (1989)
• (1990)
• The Golden Girls (1990) - Glen O'Brien
• 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)
• (1996, 1997, 1999) (guest star)
• (1998)
• Encounters With the Unexplained (1999)
• (1999) (guest star)
• (2001) (guest star)
• The Hunt (2001)
• ''Broadway: The American Musical (2004)
• (cast member in 2005) (filmed up to episode #1.6)

References

External links

• Jerry Orbach at the Internet Movie Database
• Jerry Orbach at the Internet Broadway Database
• Jerry Orbach obituary (The Washington Post)
• Biography and Interview from "Broadway; The American Musical"
• Jerry Orbach sings "Try to remember"

Awards
Preceded by Robert Goulet for The Happy Time	Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical 1969 for Promises, Promises	Succeeded by Cleavon Little for Purlie