Jerry Orbach inspired love and admiration from everyone who knew and worked with him. His fellow actors call him a trouper, a loyal friend, and an all-around good guy. But perhaps his most fitting tribute came from the New York Landmark Conservancy, which declared the actor a living landmark. "It means they can't tear me down," Orbach once quipped to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Having visited our living rooms each week for 12 years, he has taken on a status that goes beyond great actor. He was a landmark, a legend, an icon.
Orbach died of prostate cancer Dec. 28, 2004, at age 69. Still, more than a month later, we can't believe he's gone. As Det. Lennie Briscoe on NBC's long-running cop drama Law & Order, he is still beamed into our living rooms nearly every night via cable reruns. He's still there, still collaring perps and cracking wise. "I'm immensely saddened by the passing of not only a friend and colleague but a legendary figure of 20th century show business," said Dick Wolf, creator and executive producer of Law & Order, in a statement. "He was one of the most honored performers of his generation."
Orbach's peers recognized his contributions Saturday, when the actor posthumously won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. Shockingly, this is his first major award for playing Lennie Briscoe; his performance garnered an Emmy nod in 2000, as well as several nominations in SAG's ensemble category. At the SAG ceremony, Orbach's widow, Elaine Cancilla, accepted on his behalf. "How bittersweet, but it's still sweet.... Jerry was an actor and he loved actors," she said. "He loved kibitzing with them, he loved playing cards with them, he loved playing Scrabble with them, he loved being with them." Backstage, she said Orbach would have been "overjoyed" to receive the award. "He would have thanked everybody and done it eloquently," she said. "He was a man of words. When I accepted, I went, 'Oh, my God, Jerry, talk through me, talk through me.' And I think he did."
Added Wolf, "He would have loved this because it's an award from other actors, and Jerry truly loved other actors. Dayplayers would come in and literally be frozen with fear. He would get them to relax. It was truly rare."
Despite Law & Order's revolving door of cast members, Orbach inhabited the series for what seemed like forever; his persona never overwhelmed the show, but it was a comforting constant that many viewers looked forward to, season after season. The show doesn't dole out much personal information about its characters, but we knew a few things about Briscoe: He was a recovering alcoholic, was twice divorced, and had complicated relationships with his two daughters. "Though Briscoe wasn't original to the series--he followed George Dzundza as Max Greevey and Paul Sorvino as Phil Cerreta--he came to define the quintessential television detective," wrote Paige Newman in an MSNBC tribute to Orbach and his character. "He didn't feel the need to dominate every scene; he just slyly stole them, with the perfect quip and perpetually raised eyebrows."
Indeed, Briscoe's deadpan one-liners were something the show's devoted audience eagerly awaited every week. Observing a victim who had been decapitated, Briscoe dryly noted, "Hope his parents weren't getting him any hats for Christmas." Similarly, in response to someone saying one particular murder must be the work of the devil, he grimly remarked, "No, this was done by someone who knows the neighborhood. Satan's not a local."
In the hands of a lesser actor such lines might have come off as cartoonish, but Orbach gave them a lived-in, seen-it-all quality. "With his hangdog puss and loose-limbed gait, Orbach was unmatched at playing the street-smart tough guy," wrote the Associated Press' Frazier Moore. "A quintessential New Yorker, he personified his city's well-worn but implacable edge, embodying the Big Apple like few other actors."
Real-life police officers, it seems, appreciated his work on the show, too. "The police treat me very nicely," Orbach told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2003. "If it's raining and I can't get a cab, sometimes a squad car will come by, and they'll say, 'Where you going?' I say, 'I don't want to get you guys in trouble.' They say, 'Get in the back. We'll pretend you're under arrest.'"
F. Murray Abraham, who worked with Orbach in the play 6 Rms Riv Vu, was at an event for the 25th anniversary of Raging Bull recently when he spoke with a cop about the actor. "I recognized one of the security cops, [and] I asked if this was the best duty for a cop in NYC," he said. "The cop said, 'Yeah, it was pretty good duty, but the best job was working on Law & Order with Jerry Orbach.' High praise, wouldn't you say?"
Cops and TV viewers aren't the only ones who adored Orbach; producers and fellow actors have nothing but kind words for the man. "Jerry was one of the last truly great gentleman entertainers," said Jill Hennessy, who played ADA Claire Kincaid on the series. "He was one of those triple-threat actors whose charm seduced everyone he met or [who] saw his work. I am so grateful for the time I got to spend with him."
S. Epatha Merkerson, who plays Lt. Anita Van Buren on the series, recently told the Associated Press about a particular lunch she shared with Orbach and former co-star Benjamin Bratt. When several fans approached their table, "Jerry stopped eating to talk to them," she said. "But, after a while, I whispered to him, 'Your food is getting cold.' 'Kid,' he replied with a big smile, 'these are the people that keep us going.'"
Jerome Bernard Orbach was born in The Bronx, N.Y., Oct. 20, 1935. Performing ran in his family: His father was a restaurant manager with vaudeville experience, and his mother was a radio singer. "I grew up all over the country," he told journalist Pamela Wallin in 2001. "I was born in The Bronx. I moved around. Went to Pennsylvania--my mother's hometown--Scranton. Wilkes-Barre. Springfield, Mass., and then finally out to Chicago near Waukegan, Ill. So, I was kind of like an army brat in that I went to five different grade schools by the time I was in eighth grade. And I think that I became a little bit of a chameleon, so that I could adapt to any environment, to any group of people."
Post–high school, he attended Northwestern University's drama school, but he left before completing his degree. In 1955 he moved to New York and took to the stage.
Though many remember Orbach primarily for his TV work, the actor was also an accomplished song-and-dance man: He played the charming narrator in The Fantasticks, originated the role of sleazy lawyer Billy Flynn in the 1970s Broadway run of Chicago, and won a Tony for his turn in 1968's Promises, Promises, the Neil Simon/Burt Bacharach/Hal David musical version of the movie The Apartment. Writing in The New York Times about Promises, Promises, critic Clive Barnes described Orbach's performance: "He makes gangle into a verb, because that is just what he does. He gangles. He also sings most effectively, dances most occasionally, and acts with an engaging and perfectly controlled sense of desperation."
Jane Alexander, who starred with Orbach in 6 Rms Riv Vu, fondly recalls the actor's predilection for breaking into song. "Jerry knew the words to all the songs ever written, and at the drop of a hat he would suddenly start to sing.... That was the next best thing to heaven, I always thought," she said.
Orbach's considerable singing abilities were sometimes overlooked, however: In a 2003 interview with Playbill On-Line, the actor remembered one such instance from Chicago. "I did the number, 'We Both Reached for the Gun,' with Gwen Verdon sitting on my knee. I did ventriloquism, using a falsetto voice with Gwen mouthing the words. Bobby [Fosse] wanted Gwen's mouth just to go up and down, but she couldn't help mouthing the words. My sort of scratchy falsetto sounded a lot like Gwen, and people thought she was singing. I had to explain it to them later. I'm there--not moving my lips, being very proud of how I'm doing--and people said, 'Oh, really; you were doing that?'" the actor said, laughing.
Other notable theatre credits included 42nd Street, Carnival!, and Guys and Dolls, for which he was nominated for a Tony. In memory of Orbach, the lights on Broadway marquees were dimmed for one minute the night after his death.
He also made use of his formidable pipes in Disney's animated version of Beauty and the Beast. As suave talking candlestick Lumiere, he belted out the film's showstopping centerpiece number, "Be Our Guest." Gary Beach, who portrayed Lumiere in the Broadway adaptation of the movie and later won a Tony for his supporting role in The Producers, remembered Orbach as "one of the kindest men I ever met. He was at the opening of Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, and, talking to him after the show, he made me feel that I had done the character proud, and he was pleased by my performance, which tickled me no end," he said. "Years later, he came to see The Producers, and when he came into my dressing room, with a huge smile on his face, he said, 'You always play the greatest parts.'"
Other notable film roles included turns in Prince of the City, Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, and the 1987 blockbuster Dirty Dancing, in which he played Jennifer Grey's protective father. Orbach also starred in the series The Law and Harry McGraw, a spinoff of Murder, She Wrote that flopped with viewers. In 1992 he landed the regular role on Law & Order, having previously guest starred as defense attorney Frank Lehrman in a second-season episode. His craggy cop role in Prince of the City is reportedly what made Wolf think of him for Lennie Briscoe.
"When he took the job, he said, 'You know, if I do this show for five years, I'll never really have to work again,'" said Wolf. "And he did it for 12. He was much more than just a lead actor on this show; he was somebody who continuously broke in new partners effortlessly."
After 12 seasons on the series (and guest spots as Lennie on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Homicide: Life on the Street), Orbach was set to reprise the role on the upcoming spinoff, Law & Order: Trial By Jury, which premieres in March. He worked on the series until his death. The New York Daily News reported that Wolf recently told reporters, "Jerry was a true trouper. Jerry truly died with his boots on. He was shooting three weeks before he passed. He was on set. He was Jerry to the very end."
Orbach will still be featured in the episodes he finished filming--his work ethic remained impressive until the very end. "We all knew he was very ill, and the guy was such a trouper," said Trial By Jury Executive Producer Walon Green. "We would keep suggesting that maybe he didn't need to work as many days or maybe this or maybe that, and he kept saying, 'Oh, no, no, I'm fine.'"
One day, said Green, the director of the episode called, saying he was worried about Orbach, and that Green should consider writing the actor out of a certain scene. "I said, 'Yeah, the last time I took him out of a scene, he really objected to it, but I'll come down,'" remembered Green. "When I walked on the set, he was showing [co-star] Bebe [Neuwirth] how to do this dance step where you a kick a cane, and it goes up in the air, spins around, and you catch it on your arm. I watched him do that a couple of times, and then he came over and talked about who the great cane kicker of Broadway was. He looked exhausted, but I thought, 'There's no way to write this guy out.' I told the ADs, 'Move the scene to later, and he can take a nap and so forth.' But you just couldn't take him offstage--he was too much of a trouper."
Abraham also observed firsthand Orbach's dedication to acting. "I stood by for him for 13 months in the Broadway show 6 Rms Riv Vu, and I never went on," he said. "Sometimes hacking and coughing, he always insisted on doing it; I don't think he ever missed a performance in his entire career. After the show one night a well-known personality came backstage and ignored Jerry. I was angry about it, but Jerry was very cool, he said, 'Joey Gallo [a famed mobster and friend of Orbach] once told me that the only people who can really hurt you are the people you respect.'"
In addition to being the longest-running character on Law & Order, Orbach also held a record of another sort. According to website Everything2.com, he was the highest-scoring contestant on celebrity Jeopardy! and he donated his winnings to Bide-A-Wee, a charity that sponsors the adoption of stray animals. "Jerry was one of the best players we've ever had in our Jeopardy! celebrity tournaments; he was so good that we brought him back to play again," said Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. "Like millions of Amercans, I loved him as Lennie Brisco and will miss him."
There can be no denying that Orbach was a hard worker, a dedicated professional, and a guy everyone wanted to be around. He was also of course an amazing actor. "He was the actor you always want to work with," marveled Green. "It's been my experience as a writer that certain actors you work with in your life, they'll do something with the material, they'll put some tweak on it, but basically it's yours. And then there are others who kind of take it to another place, and it's yours and theirs. He was one of those, and it was always a little better for him having performed it. Sometimes a lot better." BSW
--Additional reporting by Jenelle Riley