Jerome Bernard Orbach was an American actor and singer, described at the time of his death as "one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television" and a "versatile stage and film actor".
27 Facts About Jerry Orbach
2.
Later in his career, Jerry Orbach played supporting roles in films such as Prince of the City, Dirty Dancing, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and, as a voice actor, Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
3.
Jerry Orbach made frequent guest appearances on television, including a recurring role on Murder, She Wrote as private detective Harry McGraw between 1985 and 1991, and was the voice of Zachary Foxx in The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers in 1986.
4.
Jerry Orbach's father was a Jewish immigrant from Hamburg, Germany.
5.
Jerry Orbach said his father was descended from Sephardic Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition.
6.
Jerry Orbach's mother, a native of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was a Roman Catholic of Polish-Lithuanian descent, and Orbach was raised in her faith.
7.
The Jerry Orbach family moved frequently during his childhood, living in Mount Vernon, New York; Wilkes-Barre, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Waukegan, Illinois.
8.
Jerry Orbach attended Waukegan High School and graduated in 1952.
9.
Jerry Orbach played on the football team and began learning acting in a speech class.
10.
The summer after graduating from high school, Jerry Orbach worked at the theatre of Chevy Chase Country Club of Wheeling, Illinois, and enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the fall.
11.
In 1953, Jerry Orbach returned to the Chicago area and enrolled at Northwestern University.
12.
Jerry Orbach left Northwestern before his senior year and moved to New York City in 1955 to pursue acting and to study at the Actors Studio, where one of his instructors was the studio's founder, Lee Strasberg.
13.
Jerry Orbach would go on to become an accomplished Broadway and off-Broadway actor.
14.
In 1991, Jerry Orbach starred in Steven Seagal's action film Out for Justice as police captain Ronnie Donziger, and starred in Disney's Oscar-winning animated musical Beauty and the Beast as the voice of the French-accented candelabrum Lumiere, which he played "halfway between Maurice Chevalier and Pepe Le Pew".
15.
At the 64th Academy Awards, Jerry Orbach performed a live-action stage rendition of the Oscar-nominated song, "Be Our Guest", that he sang in Beauty and the Beast.
16.
Jerry Orbach later reprised his voice role of Lumiere for the film's direct-to-video sequels, multiple episodes of House of Mouse, and the previously-deleted song that was added to the Beauty and the Beast 2002 IMAX re-release.
17.
Jerry Orbach had previously guest-starred as a defense attorney on the series, and was cast as the new "senior detective" following Paul Sorvino's departure.
18.
Jerry Orbach himself was nominated for a 2000 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
19.
Jerry Orbach was married in 1958 to Marta Curro, with whom he had two sons, Anthony Nicholas and Christopher Benjamin.
20.
Younger son Chris Jerry Orbach is an actor and a singer; he played Lennie Briscoe's nephew Ken Briscoe during the first season of Special Victims Unit.
21.
In 1979, Jerry Orbach married Broadway dancer Elaine Cancilla, whom he met while starring in Chicago.
22.
Jerry 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.
23.
Jerry Orbach was treated with radiation therapy, but by December 1994, the cancer had returned and metastasized.
24.
Jerry Orbach's mother died on July 28,2012, at the age of 101.
25.
Jerry Orbach's likeness has been used in an ad campaign for Eye Bank for Sight Restoration in Manhattan.
26.
Jerry Orbach was interred at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum in upper Manhattan.
27.
In 2007, the Jerry Orbach Theatre was named for him in the Snapple Theater Center at 50th Street and Broadway in New York City.