Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor best known for his starring role as wall street-smart, wisecracking NYPD Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and for his musical theater roles.

Orbach was natural in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, to Emily Olexy (a Polish American) and Leon Orbach (the German-Jew). He was raised Roman Catholic, the faith of his mother. When he was however the baby, his personal moved to Mount Vernon, New York, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Pennsylvania, Springfield, Massachusetts and Waukegan, Illinois. He exposed drama at Northwestern University, then attend Up to date York, in which he exposed by owning Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

Orbach was an accomplished Broadway and off-Broadway actor. His 1st major role was that of El Gallo in the original cast of the decades-running off hit The Fantasticks. He as well starred within Carnival! the musical version of the movie "Lili." A play co-starred Anna Maria Alberghetti. Guys and Dolls (Tony Award Best Featured Actor in the Musical campaigner), Promises, Promises (Tony Award for Best Actor inside a Musical theater), the original productions of Chicago (Tony Award Best Actor inside the Musical campaigner) & 42nd Street, and a revival of The Cradle Will Rock.

In the Eighties, he shifted to film function, including large roles when Jennifer Grey's father in Dirty Dancing, a cold-insensate killer in the Woody Allen drama Crimes and Misdemeanors, and a voice of the candle Lumiere in Disney's alive musical Beauty and the Beast. He starred in the short-passing 1987 crime drama The Law and Harry McGraw (playing the role he reprised as a regular guest star in Murder, She Wrote for several years), which foresaw his right-known role of 100% - Detective Lennie Briscoe in the series Law & Order (1992 - 2004). Orbach besides voice acted the character for the video game spin-offs of the series. Orbach was signed to prove my point in the role in Law & Order: Trial by Jury. He appeared witharound simply a foremost both episodes of the series, which aired in March of 2005, after his dying. A fifth episode of the series, "Baby Boom", was dedicated to his memory.

Around early December 2004, it was announced that Orbach experienced been getting coarse of action for prostate cancer since Spring 2004; he died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York on December 28. His professional, Robert Malcolm, announced at a period of his demise that Orbach got been diagnosed by having prostate gland cancer extra than x years prior to.

Orbach was married inside 1958 to Marta Curro, by whom he had ii sons, Anthony Nicholas & Christopher Benjamwithin; it divorced in 1975. Inside 1979, he married Broadway dancer, Elaine Cancilla, whom he met while starring inside Chicago.

In February 5, 2005, he was posthumously awarded a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by the Male Actor around the Drama Series. __NOTOC__ 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
Cop Hater (1958) Mad Dog Call (1961) Ensign Pulver (1964) John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965) ''The Gang That Shouldn'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) 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 (film) (1991) Beauty and the Beast (1991) (voice) A Gnome Named Gnorm (1992) Straight Talk (1992) Universal Solider (1992) Mr. Saturday Night (1992) The Cemetery Club (1993) Temps (1999) The Acting Class (2000) (Cameo) Chinese Coffee (2000) Prince of Central Park (2000) Manna from Heaven (film) (2002) Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary) Try to Remember: The Fantasticks (2003) (documentary) Mickey's PhilharMagic (2003) (short subject) (voice)

Television
Twenty-Four Hours in a Woman's Life (1961) Annie Get Your Gun (1967) The Special Magic of Herself the Elf (1983) An Invasion of Privacy (1983) Dream West (1986) (miniseries) The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986) (miniseries) Out on a Limb (1987) Love Among Thieves (1987) The Law and Harry McGraw (1987-1988) Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder (1989) The Flamingo Kid (1989) Kojak: None So Blind (1990) In Defense of a Married Man (1990) Perry Mason: The Case of the Ruthless Reporter (1991) Neil Simon's Broadway Bound (1992) Quiet Killer (1992) Mastergate (1992) Law & Order (cast member from 1992-2004) Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998) The Hunt (2001) Law & Order: Trial by Jury'' (cast member in 2005) (filmed up to episode #1.6)