Career
Orbach was an accomplished Broadway and Off Broadway actor. His first major role was El Gallo in the original cast of the decades-running hit The Fantasticks. He also starred in The Threepenny Opera, Carnival!, the musical version of the movie Lili (his Broadway debut), in a revival of Guys and Dolls (as Sky Masterson, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical), Promises, Promises (as Chuck, receiving a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical), the original productions of Chicago (as Billy Flynn, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical), 42nd Street, and a revival of The Cradle Will Rock. Orbach made occasional film and TV appearances into the 1970s.
In the 1980s, he shifted to film and TV work full-time. Prominent roles included a superb performance as tough, effective, but "allegedly corrupt" NYPD officer 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 Jennifer Grey's father in Dirty Dancing and a gangster in the Woody Allen drama Crimes and Misdemeanors. In 1985 he became a regular guest star as a private detective on "Murder, She Wrote" which led to him starring in the short-lived 1987 crime drama The Law and Harry McGraw. He also appeared as a celebrity panelist on both What's My Line? and Super Password, and guest starred on the sitcom The Golden Girls.
In 1991, Orbach starred in the Academy Award-winning animated musical Beauty and the Beast, as the voice (both singing and speaking) of the candelabrum Lumière, a role he would reprise in the film's direct-to-video sequels and some of its video game spin-offs. 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.
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