Orbach of ‘Law & Order’ dies
NEW YORK – “Law & Order” star Jerry Orbach, who died of prostate cancer Tuesday night at 69, was a classic New York actor whose flinty, skeptical exterior could hide either a heart of gold or a heart of stone.
Orbach was a Broadway fixture and familiar movie face years before he became a national institution as the wisecracking, rock-solid New York cop Lennie Briscoe on NBC’s popular crime series.
“His loss is irreplaceable,” said Dick Wolf, creator and executive producer of “Law and Order.”
“I’m immensely saddened by the passing of not only a friend and colleague, but a legendary figure of 20th century show business who was a star of screen, stage and television. He was one of the most honored performers of his generation.”
“Jerry loved his life and work and we loved him right back,” said actor Sam Waterston, a co-star on “Law and Order.” “He was a wonderful actor and an extraordinarily good man. He made us laugh every day.”
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani called Orbach “a devoted ambassador of the city,” noting his support for the real-life NYPD. “Jerry Orbach was a friend to all New Yorkers,” Giuliani said Wednesday.
Broadway planned to dim its lights Wednesday night in his memory.
“Jerry’s strong spirit will be with me forever,” said Chita Rivera, his co-star in the original 1975 Broadway production of “Chicago.” “He was an anchor who brought style, security and razzle-dazzle to our company.”
Orbach’s cancer diagnosis was revealed less than a month ago.
He left the original “Law & Order” earlier this year, but had begun work on its latest spinoff, “Trial By Jury,” which was to feature his Briscoe character.
Born in the Bronx, Orbach moved back to New York after drama school. In 2002, the city Landmarks Conservancy named him a “Living Landmark.”
“This means,” he joked, “that they can’t tear me down.”
The son of a vaudevillian and a radio singer, Orbach said his acting idols were Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando, the cool rebels of his teenage years.
He wanted a movie career, he said later, but found it easier to get work in the theater. His breakthrough came in 1956 in the Off-Broadway revival of “The Threepenny Opera,” which led him in 1960 to a stylized fairy tale called “The Fantasticks,” where he played the narrator El Gallo and introduced the song “Try to Remember.”
Lacking matinee idol looks and a classic singing voice, Orbach was an unlikely candidate for musical theater stardom, but that’s where “The Fantasticks” propelled him.
“Something about him was magnetic,” said the late Lore Noto, creator of “The Fantasticks.” “He commanded attention.”
Orbach scored a Tony nomination as Sky Masterson in the 1965 Broadway revival of “Guys and Dolls” and won the Tony in 1969 for “Promises, Promises.”
He was nominated again for “Chicago,” but his biggest Broadway success came as the gruff, tormented producer Julian Marsh in the 1980 smash “42nd Street.” Orbach cracked Marsh open just enough to reveal a romantic under the hard crust.
From there he finally began getting movie roles, starting with the tough cop Gus Levy in the 1981 “Prince of the City.”
That role, Orbach would later say, “changed my image. … (People said) ‘Oh, he’s not a song-and-dance guy. He can act.’ “
While he never reached full Hollywood stardom, he had several memorable roles, including an indelible turn in the 1987 hit “Dirty Dancing” as Jennifer Grey’s uncomfortably button-down father.
In 1991 he voiced Lumiere the candelabra in the Walt Disney animated feature “Beauty and the Beast.”
Orbach was shuffling between movie and TV roles before he signed on as Briscoe in the third season of the already popular “Law & Order.”
Since then, the show has consistently been near the top of the ratings — and is often broadcast several times a day in repeats, making him one of the most familiar faces on television.
The Lennie Briscoe role, Orbach once said, gave him security unusual for an actor – and let him work on his golf game.
Surviving are his second wife, Elaine, and two children by his first marriage, Chris and Tony.