Actor Jerry Orbach, one of the most beloved and versatile Broadway performers of his generation and later an instantly familiar face as Detective Lennie Briscoe on TV's long-running "Law & Order," died Tues., Dec. 28, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He was 69 and had suffered from prostate cancer for much of the last decade.
Main Stem marquee lights were dimmed on Wed., Dec. 29, in Orbach's memory. In a statement, Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres and Producers, said, "Broadway is deeply saddened by the loss of well-loved stage and screen star Jerry Orbach. Jerry was a true New Yorker. Both his Broadway and television career were based here and our city is just a little sadder without him."
Born in the Bronx, Orbach matchlessly personified the gritty, no-nonsense Gotham spirit during his dozen seasons on the NBC hit, yet prior to that he had established himself as perhaps the finest song-and-dance man Broadway had seen in a generation. After two years at Northwestern University in Chicago in the early 1950s, he returned to New York and landed his first major professional job: understudying the role of the Street Singer in the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway production of "The Threepenny Opera" that ran at the Theatre de Lys, now the Lucille Lortel, for over 2,600 performances, eventually rising to the role of Mack the Knife.
In 1960, he was cast as El Gallo in another Off-Broadway tuner, this one fated for even greater success: "The Fantasticks," in which he introduced the song "Try to Remember" and became a legitimate star. He debuted on Broadway in the musical "Carnival!" the following year, earned his first Tony nod for a 1965 "Guys and Dolls" revival, and in 1969 won the Tony Award for best actor in a musical for "Promises, Promises."
His final three Broadway outings were all distinguished as well, from the play "6 Rms Riv Vu" to originating the role of Billy Flynn in "Chicago" to commanding the stage as Julian Marsh in the 1980 blockbuster "42nd Street." It was at the opening-night performance of "42nd Street" that Orbach's gravitas was needed most: Producer David Merrick had hidden from the cast the fact that the show's director, Gower Champion, had died; when Merrick announced the news following a tumultuous curtain call, the audience and cast were stunned. It was Orbach who requested that the curtain descend on one of the unforgettable moments in modern theatrical history.
Orbach's own history, however, was just beginning. In the early 1990s, he was cast as a prickly, world-weary, streetwise cop on NBC's "Law & Order," and soon a whole new generation of fans watched him weekly address the crime of the day. At the end of last season, Orbach made his illness public, yet he had plans to star in another entry in the hugely successful franchise: "Law & Order: Trial by Jury."
His second wife, Elaine Cancialla; two sons by his first marriage, Anthony and Christopher; and his mother, Emily, survive him.