October 20: Happy Birthday Jerry Orbach

[TMC]

https://lebeauleblog.com/2017/10/20/...and-tom-petty/

Jerry Orbach (1935-2004) graduated from high school at sixteen, and studied at Northwestern, dropping out to study acting with Lee Strasberg, and to join the off-Broadway cast of The Threepenny Opera. Over the next 25 years or so Orbach had a terrific career in musical theater. He won a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical as Chuck Baxter in Promises, Promises (adapted from the movie The Apartment), and received three additional Tony nominations. Some of his better-known roles included El Gallo in The Fantasticks, Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Jigger Craigin in Carousel, Billy Flynn in Chicago, and Julian Marsh in 42nd Street.

Orbach had begun a screen career as early as the fifties, but didn’t switch his focus to film and television work until the early eighties. He had prominent roles in films like Prince of the City, F/X, and Dirty Dancing, and in 1991 provided the singing and speaking voices of Lumière in Beauty and the Beast. A year later, he was cast in the role of Det. Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order. He received the third of his three Emmy nominations for the role, which he continued in until shortly before his death from cancer in 2004.