Theater News

Jerry Orbach Remembered at Richard Rodgers Theatre

Jerry Orbach
Jerry Orbach

On Thursday, March 24, a packed house at Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre
honored the memory of actor Jerry Orbach, who died of prostate cancer last December at age 69. He was “truly a Broadway legend,” said Angela Lansbury, one of the stars who paid him tribute.

Sam Waterston, Orbach’s co-star on TV’s Law & Order for 12 seasons, hosted the memorial service and remarked that he “was amazed how any one man could do so much” on stage, in television, and in films. Waterston noted that Orbach had been declared a “living landmark” and stated that the Rodgers Theatre was where Orbach had met Elaine Cancilla, his wife of 25 years, during the original production of Chicago. Heard over and over during the afternoon were references to Orbach’s kindness, compassion, humor, and love for his wife.

Calling the late star “Mister Broadway” and “Babe Ruth of the boards,” Waterston claimed that Orbach had played more Broadway performances in leading roles than any other actor. The host introduced Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who described Orbach as “the quintessential New York actor, someone who deserves to be celebrated as a true Prince of the City [the title of the 1981 movie in which Orbach plays a no-nonsense police detective].” Following a clip of Orbach singing “She Likes Basketball” from Promises, Promises, for which Orbach has won a Tony Award, Waterston joked, “I sing like that, too; I just don’t make a big thing out of it.” Director Ed Sherin spoke of how Orbach did not take friendship for granted, and read a Shakespeare sonnet in memory of his friend.

Film historian Richard Brown recalled that he asked Orbach what it meant to be declared a “living landmark” and that Orbach replied, “I think it means they can’t tear me down.” Brown and his wife vacationed on cruise ships with Mr. and Mrs. Orbach, and the actor would be greeted by comments such as “Mister Detective Man,” or “We love you, Dirty Dancing daddy” — the latter a reference to the 1987 movie in which Orbach played Jennifer Grey’s physician-father. Next came clips from the three movies screened on the Orbach-Brown cruises (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Dirty Dancing, Prince of the City) and a clip of Orbach singing “Lullaby of Broadway” from the original production of 42nd Street. Karen Ziemba, who was a replacement in that show and whom Orbach considered “a little sister,” sang “They Were You” from The Fantasticks, in which the actor created the role of El Gallo.

Clips from Chicago and TV’s Murder, She Wrote preceded Angela Lansbury’s appearance. “Life goes in circles,” said Lansbury, adding that “Jerry and I shared some of the golden days of Broadway that no longer exist.” During her long-running television series, recalled Lansbury, they “tried to lure Broadway actors” to make guest appearances on the show because of the “zing and quality only Broadway actors have.” ON Murder, She Wrote, Orbach played a recurring character named Harry McGraw (later spun off into the series The Law and Harry McGraw), and Lansbury said that “to have Jerry on the set with me was like a breath of Broadway.” She mentioned their having worked together in recording the soundtrack of the animated feature Beauty and the Beast, with Lansbury voicing Mrs. Potts and Orbach voicing Lumière. Lansbury concluded that she was “proud to have been part of [Orbach’s] circle.”

Law & Order creator Dick Wolf remembered having suggested that Orbach play Detective Lennie Briscoe much like his Prince of the City character, and described the actor as “the ultimate trouper, the ultimate team player.” Declared Wolf: “In a business where schadenfreude is a polite emotion, Jerry is the only person I know [of whom] I never, never heard a negative word — either as an actor or a person.” Orbach’s real
legacy, said Wolf, was as “an ultimate gentleman, in the true sense of being a gentle man.”

Elaine Orbach remarked, “There’s so much love in this theater,” and said that, to her, “Mrs. Jerry Orbach were the most beautiful words in the English language.” Every morning, before he left for the Law & Order set, her husband would write her a poem. A dozen examples of these were then read by the Orbachs’ good friend, Jane Alexander (Mrs. Ed Sherin), who co-starred with Orbach on Broadway in the comedy 6 Rms Riv Vu. Projections of family photographs added a nice personal touch to the memorial. Then Dick Wolf and NBC president Jeff Zucker presented Elaine Orbach with a $1 million check to Sloan-Kettering for prostate cancer research. The final clip was of Orbach singing “Try to Remember” at a February 2003 Drama League tribute in his honor, held in the grand ballroom of the Pierre Hotel.

TV viewers will remember Orbach as Lennie Briscoe, and many of his colleagues from
the four Law & Order series were in attendance at the memorial. Theatergoers will recall him as El Gallo, puppeteer Paul Berthalet in Carnival, Foreman in The Cradle Will Rock (Off-Broadway in 1964), Sky Masterson in a 1965 City Center revival of Guys and Dolls, Jigger Craigin in the 1965 Lincoln Center production of Carousel that starred John Raitt, Charlie Davenport in the 1966 Lincoln Center production of Annie Get Your Gun that starred Ethel Merman, Harold Wonder in Off-Broadway’s Scuba Duba, Chuck Baxter in Promises, Promises, Billy Flynn in Chicago, and Julian Marsh in 42nd Street. As the final slide in the memorial said, Jerry Orbach will be missed.