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Jerry Orbach

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Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Jerome Bernard Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor and singer, described at the time of his death as "one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television"<ref name=NYTobit>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and a "versatile stage and film actor."<ref name="Obituary">Template:Cite news</ref> Over his career he received a Tony Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award.

Orbach's career began on the New York stage, both on and off-Broadway, where he created roles such as El Gallo in the original off-Broadway run of The Fantasticks (1960) where he was the first performer to sing that show's standard "Try to Remember."<ref name=Gilvey>Template:Cite book</ref> He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for playing Chuck Baxter in the musical Promises, Promises (1968–1972).<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> He was Tony-nominated for portraying Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (1965) and Billy Flynn in the original Chicago (1976). He also acted in Annie Get Your Gun (1966) and 42nd Street (1980).

He gained worldwide fame for starring as NYPD Detective Lennie Briscoe on the NBC legal drama Law & Order from 1992 to 2004.<ref name="AP">Template:Cite news</ref> For the role he earned the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series as well as a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He reprised the role across several series including Homicide: Life on the Street (1996–1999), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–2000), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), and Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005). He also played private detective Harry McGraw in the CBS murder-mystery series Murder, She Wrote (1985–1991), and The Law & Harry McGraw (1987–1988).

On film, Orbach often took numerous supporting roles such as a detective in the crime drama Prince of the City (1981), a coach in the comedy film Brewster's Millions (1985), an overly protective father in romance film Dirty Dancing (1987), and a mobster in the drama Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He voiced Lumiere the Candlestick in the Walt Disney animated musical film Beauty and the Beast (1991).<ref name=Gilvey/>

Early lifeEdit

Orbach was born on October 20, 1935, in the Bronx, the only child of Emily Orbach (née Olexy), a greeting card manufacturer and radio singer, and Leon Orbach, a restaurant manager and vaudeville performer. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Hamburg, Germany. Orbach said his father was descended from Sephardic Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition.<ref name="in step">Template:Cite magazine</ref> His mother, a native of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was a Roman Catholic of Polish-Lithuanian descent, and Orbach was raised in her faith (a religious background later replicated in his character on Law & Order).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Living Landmark">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Gilvey (2011), p. 4.</ref> The Orbach family moved frequently during his childhood, living in Mount Vernon, New York; Wilkes-Barre, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Waukegan, Illinois. Orbach attended Waukegan High School and graduated in 1952 (having skipped two grades in elementary school due to his high IQ of 163<ref name=Gilvey />).<ref name="school">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=NYTobit /> He played on the football team and began learning acting in a speech class.<ref name="biography.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The summer after graduating from high school, Orbach worked at the theatre of Chevy Chase Country Club of Wheeling, Illinois, and enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the fall. In 1953, Orbach returned to the Chicago area and enrolled at Northwestern University. Orbach left Northwestern before his senior year and moved to New York City in 1955 to pursue acting and to study at the Actors Studio, where one of his instructors was the studio's founder, Lee Strasberg.<ref name="biography.com" />

CareerEdit

1960–1979: Broadway debut and theatre rolesEdit

File:Michael O'Haughey and Jerry Orbach in Chicago musical.JPG
Orbach as Billy Flynn in the original 1975 Broadway production of Chicago, with M. O'Haughey as Mary Sunshine.

Orbach became an accomplished Broadway and off-Broadway actor. His first major role was El Gallo in the original 1960 cast of the decades-running hit The Fantasticks, and Orbach became the first to perform the show's signature song and pop standard "Try To Remember".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also starred in The Threepenny Opera; Carnival!, the musical version of the movie Lili (his Broadway debut); in revivals of Annie Get Your Gun and Guys and Dolls (as Sky Masterson, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical); Promises, Promises (as Chuck Baxter, winning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical); the original productions of Chicago (as Billy Flynn, receiving another Tony Award nomination); 42nd Street; and a revival of The Cradle Will Rock. Orbach made occasional film and TV appearances into the 1970s and appeared as a celebrity panelist on both What's My Line? and Super Password.

1980–1991: Film roles and Beauty and the BeastEdit

In the 1980s, Orbach shifted to film and TV work full-time. Prominent roles included tough, corrupt NYPD narcotics detective Gus Levy in Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City; he was the 1981 runner-up for the NSFC Best Supporting Actor award. He also portrayed gangsters in both the action-thriller F/X and the Woody Allen drama Crimes and Misdemeanors (the latter of which also featured his future Law & Order co-star Sam Waterston). In 1985, Orbach became a regular guest star on Murder, She Wrote as private detective Harry McGraw, which led to him starring in the short-lived spin-off series The Law & Harry McGraw. In 1987, he was featured in the hit film Dirty Dancing as Dr. Jake Houseman, the father of Jennifer Grey's character "Baby". He made further TV appearances on popular shows such as The Golden Girls (for which he received his first Emmy nomination<ref name=Gilvey/>), and Who's the Boss?.

In 1991, Orbach starred in Steven Seagal's action film Out for Justice as police captain Ronnie Donziger, and starred in Disney's Oscar-winning animated musical Beauty and the Beast as the voice (both singing and speaking) of the French-accented candelabrum Lumière, which he played "halfway between Maurice Chevalier and Pepé Le Pew".<ref name=Gilvey/> At the 64th Academy Awards, Orbach performed a live-action stage rendition of the Oscar-nominated song, "Be Our Guest", that he sang in Beauty and the Beast.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He later reprised his voice role of Lumière for the film's direct-to-video sequels, multiple episodes of House of Mouse, and the previously-deleted song ("Human Again") that was added to the Beauty and the Beast 2002 IMAX re-release.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

1992–2004: Law & Order and stardomEdit

In 1992, Orbach joined the main cast of Law & Order during its third season as the world-weary, wisecracking NYPD homicide detective Lennie Briscoe. He had previously guest-starred as a defense attorney on the series, and was subsequently cast as the new "senior detective" following Paul Sorvino's departure.<ref name="AP"/> Orbach's portrayal of Briscoe was based on his similar role from Prince of the City years before, which Law & Order creator Dick Wolf had personally suggested to him at the time of his casting.<ref name=Gilvey/> Orbach starred on Law & Order for Template:Frac seasons, ultimately becoming the third longest-serving main cast member (behind S. Epatha Merkerson and Sam Waterston) in the show's 20-year-run history, as well as one of its most popular.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> During Orbach's tenure on Law & Order, the series won the 1997 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series among other accolades, made multiple crossover episodes with fellow NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street, and spawned a franchise that included the TV film Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, the spin-off series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (both of which featured Orbach in guest appearances), and three video games. Orbach himself was nominated for a 2000 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (losing to James Gandolfini for The Sopranos). TV Guide named Lennie Briscoe one of their top-25 greatest television detectives of all time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Also during his time on Law & Order, Orbach provided the voice of the main antagonist Sa'luk in the 1996 direct-to-video film Aladdin and the King of Thieves, and co-starred with Al Pacino in the independent film Chinese Coffee, which was filmed in the summer of 1997 and released three years later.<ref name=Gilvey/>

Personal lifeEdit

Marriages and familyEdit

Orbach was married in 1958 to Marta Curro, with whom he had two sons, Anthony Nicholas and Christopher Benjamin.<ref name=NYTobit/> They divorced in 1975.<ref name=NYTobit/> Elder son Tony is a construction manager and an accomplished crossword puzzle constructor who has published more than 25 puzzles in The New York Times.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Younger son Chris Orbach is an actor and a singer; he played Lennie Briscoe's nephew Ken Briscoe during the first season of Special Victims Unit.

In 1979, Jerry Orbach married Broadway dancer Elaine Cancilla, whom he met while starring in Chicago.<ref name="auto">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Orbach lived in a high-rise on 53rd Street off Eighth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen and was a fixture in that neighborhood's restaurants and shops.<ref name=NYTobit/> 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 met with some resistance by local planning boards but were overcome thanks to his popularity and his love of the Big Apple.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Illness and deathEdit

In January 1994, less than two years into his stint on Law & Order, Orbach was diagnosed with prostate cancer.<ref name=Gilvey/> He was treated with radiation therapy, but by December 1994, the cancer had returned and metastasized. At that point, he went on hormone therapy, on which he remained over the next decade while he continued to star on Law & Order.<ref name=Gilvey/> After he left the series at the end of the 2003–04 season, Orbach underwent chemotherapy, but he ultimately succumbed to the cancer on December 28, 2004, at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York at age 69.<ref name="Obituary"/> Orbach's decade-long illness was not revealed to the general public until just weeks before he died.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Orbach was signed to continue in the role of Lennie Briscoe on the new spin-off Law & Order: Trial by Jury, which gave him a lighter schedule than the original series, but he was only featured in the first two episodes, both of which aired after his death.<ref name=Gilvey/>

The day after Orbach's death, the marquees on Broadway were dimmed in mourning, one of the highest honors of the American theatre world,<ref name=Gilvey/> while NBC re-aired the Law & Order episode "C.O.D." (the last episode of the original series to feature Orbach) in honor of him. The Criminal Intent episode "View from Up Here" and the Trial by Jury episode "Baby Boom"<ref name=Gilvey/> were dedicated to Orbach, and the Law & Order episode "Mammon" featured a pictorial memorial of him.

In addition to his sons, wife, and former wife, Orbach was survived by his mother and two grandchildren, Peter and Sarah Kate Orbach, children of his older son Tony. His mother died on July 28, 2012, at the age of 101.<ref>Obituary for Emily Orbach, The New York Times; accessed January 16, 2014 at legacy.com archive online.</ref> His wife Elaine died in 2009 at age 69, and his former wife Marta died in 2012 at age 79. Having had perfect 20/20 vision his whole life, Jerry Orbach requested that his eyes be donated after his death.<ref name=Gilvey/> His wish was granted when two people – one who needed correction for a nearsighted eye and another who needed correction for a farsighted eye – received Orbach's corneas. His likeness has been used in an ad campaign for Eye Bank for Sight Restoration in Manhattan. Orbach was interred at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum in upper Manhattan.<ref name=Gilvey/>

Honors and legacyEdit

File:Jerry Orbach Way.jpg
Jerry Orbach Way in New York City (2019)

In addition to his Tony Award and nominations, Jerry Orbach is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 1999.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2002, Orbach was named a "Living Landmark" by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, along with his Law & Order co-star Sam Waterston.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Orbach quipped that the honor meant "that they can't tear me down."<ref name="Living Landmark"/>

On February 5, 2005, he was posthumously awarded a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series for his longtime role on Law & Order.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His wife Elaine accepted the award on his behalf.

In 2007, the Jerry Orbach Theatre was named for him in the Snapple Theater Center at 50th Street and Broadway in New York City. At the time, the theater was mounting a revival of The Fantasticks. On September 18, 2007, a portion of New York City's 53rd Street near Eighth Avenue was renamed "Jerry Orbach Way" in his honor.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After Law & Order was cancelled in 2010, executive producer René Balcer told The Wall Street Journal: "I always think about the show as before Jerry and after Jerry...You saw the weariness of 25 years of crime-fighting in New York written on his face."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Author Kurt Vonnegut, a fan of Orbach, said during an Australian radio interview in 2005, "People have asked me, you know, 'Who would you rather be, than yourself?'" and he replied "Jerry Orbach, without a question...I talked to him one time, and he's adorable."<ref>October 6, 2005. Kurt Vonnegut interviewed on ABC Radio National Audio by Phillip Adams. Available on the Slaughterhouse-Five Region 4 DVD, released by Umbrella Entertainment Pty Ltd in 2007.</ref> New York Times writers Ben Brantley and Richard Severo analyzed the breadth and scope of Orbach's career,<ref name=NYTobit/> and Dirty Dancing co-star Patrick Swayze memorialized Orbach after his death.<ref>Template:Cite video</ref>

Acting credits and accoladesEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

DiscographyEdit

Sources:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Jerry Orbach: Off Broadway (MGM Records, 1963).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

BibliographyEdit

  • Remember How I Love You: Love Letters from an Extraordinary Marriage (Touchstone, 2009).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • Jerry Orbach, Prince of the City: His Way from the Fantasticks to Law & Order by John Anthony Gilvey, was published on May 1, 2011.<ref name=Gilvey/>

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

External linksEdit

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