Jerry Orbach

Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 –????) is an American actor, singer, and badass. He is well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Additionally, his skills at Fists of Fire have brought him national attention in the Jackie Chan community. Orbach is also a noted musical theatre star, but you don't really care about that.

Early life
Orbach was born in The Bronx, the only child of Emily (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. His mother, a native of Pennsylvania, was Polish American and Catholic, and Orbach was raised Catholic (a religious background later replicated in his character on Law and Order). Throughout his childhood, the Orbach family moved frequently, living in Mount Vernon, New York; Wilkes-Barre, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Waukegan, Illinois. He studied drama at University of Illinois and Northwestern University and then went to New York, where he studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. He began kicking ass at a young age, starting with shoving a crayon up a rival's nose in kindergarten.

Career
Orbach was an accomplished Broadway and Off Broadway actor. Orbach made occasional film and TV appearances into the 1970s. In the 1980s, he shifted to film and TV work full-time.

In 1991, Orbach starred in the Academy Award-winning animated musical Beauty and the Beast, as the voice of the candelabrum Lumière, a role he would reprise in the film's direct-to-video sequels. He also voiced the character for the video game spin-offs of the series. That same year, he played a NYPD police lieutenant of detectives in Steven Seagal's Out for Justice and appeared as a defense attorney in the Law & Order episode "The Wages of Love". In 1992, Orbach joined the main cast of Law & Order as world-weary, wisecracking, streetwise NYPD police detective Lennie Briscoe. People loved the relish he took in his sarcastic comments as he arrested some pompous bigwig. He remained on the show until 2004 and became one of its most popular characters. TV Guide named Briscoe one of their top 50 television detectives of all-time. Orbach was signed to continue in the role on Law & Order: Trial by Jury, but appeared in only the first two episodes of the series. Both episodes aired in March 2005, after his death. The fifth episode of the series, "Baby Boom", and the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode, "View from Up Here", were dedicated to his memory.

Personal life
Orbach was married in 1958 to Marta Curro, with whom he had two sons, Anthony Nicholas and Christopher Benjamin; they divorced in 1975. Elder son Tony Is a crossword puzzle constructor for The New York Times. Younger son Chris Orbach, who is an actor and singer, played Lennie Briscoe's nephew Ken Briscoe on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 1979, Jerry Orbach married Broadway dancer Elaine Cancilla, whom he met while starring in Chicago.

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. 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.

Orbach's current residence is unknown, but he can be relied upon to appear wherever a Fists of Fire tournament takes place.



Death
Anyone who tells you that Jerry Orbach is dead should be drawn and quartered immediately, and his/her name should be stricken from any official records ever. Investigations into the exact methods Orbach used to fake his own death have made little progress.

All that we do know is that he is not dead.

Word.

Character
Jerry Orbach is most commonly known for playing Lau in most situations, though he has been occasionally known to pick other characters, and try to play to his best match-ups. His years on the streets of NYC taught him never to let stubbornness get in the way of his ability to kick ass.

Honors Outside of Jackie Chan
"'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.' - Kurt Vonnegut"

Tournament Honors

 * Doritos Collisions: Maximum Chip Damage 2012: Last place

Stage

 * Guys and Dolls (1965)
 * Annie Get Your Gun (1966)
 * Chicago (1975)
 * The Fantasticks (1960)

Video Games

 * Kingdom Hearts II (2005)

Filmography

 * Fore Play (1975)
 * The Sentinel (1977)
 * Brewster's Millions (1985)
 * F/X (1986)
 * Dirty Dancing (1987)
 * I Love N.Y. (1988)
 * Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
 * Dead Women in Lingerie (1991)
 * Out for Justice (1991)
 * Universal Soldier (1992)
 * Manna from Heaven (2002)

Television

 * Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1980) (guest star) - Lars Mangros
 * The Golden Girls (1990) – Glen O'Brien
 * Law & Order Episode:The Wages of Love - Defense Attorney Frank Lehrmann - Guest Star  (1991)
 * Law & Order (cast member from 1992–2004)
 * Homicide: Life on the Street (1996, 1997, 1999) (guest star)
 * Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998)
 * Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) (guest star)
 * Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) (guest star)
 * Law & Order: Trial by Jury (cast member in 2005) (filmed up to episode #1.6)

Books
His love poems to his wife Elaine were published in Remember How I Love You: Love Letters from an Extraordinary Marriage (Touchstone, 2009). Another biography, Jerry Orbach, Prince of the City: His Way From The Fantasticks to Law & Order by John Anthony Gilvey, was published on May 1st 2011.