Jerry Orbach, the laconic, sharp featured character actor, who found fame as Detective Lennie Briscoe on NBC's long-running crime drama, Law & Order, died on December 28 in Manhattan of prostate cancer. He was 69.

He was born Jerome Bernard Orbach in the Bronx on October 20, 1935; his father was a former vaudeville performer, and his mother a radio singer. As a teen, his family moved to Waukegan, Illinois, where he got involved in performing in both musicals and drama. He studied drama at the University of Illinois and at Northwestern and then returned to New York in 1955 to study acting with Lee Strasberg.

Almost immediately, Orbach found work on off-Broadway, starring in The Threepenny Opera. He made his film debut as a street gang leader in a small budget crime drama, Cop Hater (1958); but it would be in 1959 that Orbach would score big for his next role on the New York Stage - that of El Gallo in the history making, 42-year running musical, The Fantasticks. Throughout the '60s and 70s, Orbach would appear in a few television programs (The Defenders, Kojak); and a movie or two (Mad Dog Coll, The Sentinel); but it was on Broadway that Orbach would earn stardom. In 1965, he was nominated for the Tony Award for Guys and Dolls; won a Tony in 1969 Promises, Promises; and created the role of Billy Flynn opposite Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon in the original production of Chicago in 1975 (another Tony nomination).

As he matured into his fifties, Orbach was in demand for some fine character parts in films: the murderous gangster in FX (1986); the overprotective father of Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing (1987); and the dubious relative who hires a hit man for his brother Martin Landau in Woody Allen's acclaimed Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). On television, he made several appearances as the hard boiled gumshoe Harry McGraw opposite Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote; and even had a spin-off on his own for one season, The Law and Harry McGraw (1987-88). Yet it's no secret what program made him an indelible star to most of America. His 12 seasons as the wiry, sardonic Manhattan detective Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order (1992-2004), made Orbach a household name. Although he left the show earlier this year, he was set to play Briscoe in a Law & Order spin-off, Trial by Jury, which is expected to launch on NBC this March. Orbach is survived by his wife Elaine Cancilla, and two sons from a previous marriage, Anthony and Chris.

by Michael T. Toole