When Jerry Orbach died a fellow fan remarked in her blog "heaven has another star" and I replied "I think he was always just on loan".

Jerry Orbach was a rarity he was a star on Broadway for decades before most of the country...
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When Jerry Orbach died a fellow fan remarked in her blog "heaven has another star" and I replied "I think he was always just on loan".

Jerry Orbach was a rarity he was a star on Broadway for decades before most of the country discovered him as an actor on TV. He starred in a string of OffBroadway and Broadway hits. The Fantasticks -The longest running off-Broadway play (40yrs). Orbach was the original El Gallo and the creators credit his talents as being responsible for the musical ending up in it's final form. Jerry's theme song Try to Remember comes from The Fantasticks. His first Broadway musical was Carnival, he played the romantic lead, a crippled puppeteer. He not only sang such beautiful songs as She's My Love and Her Face but also provided the voices for 4 puppets. His next musical Promises, Promises he won a Tony for and introduced 2 very popular Burt Bacharach songs the musical's title piece and I'll Never Fall in Love Again. Jerry Orbach was the Original shyster - Billy Flynn in Chicago, yet another Tony nominated performance. If you get a chance to hear him sing or see some of the rare tapes of his performances (each of the Broadway's Lost Treasures has one of his performances on it)

In the midst of all his success as a Broadway musical star he still longed to do roles on the big screen and finally a big break came along. He was cast in Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City as the tough New York City Cop Gus Levy. He turns in a terrific performance in that movie and has a great scene in which he gets very physical with one of those IAB rat squad kind of guys. HIs role in that movie would eventual lead to great things.
By the time the film was released and began getting critical acclaim, Jerry was already cast as the lead in another Broadway Musical 42nd St. The musical would be such a big hit and Jerry had a standing policy to "never leave a hit show", that he had to pass up a lot of movie deals.

Finally he started having luck on the small screen and with the development of the recurring character good-hearted but somewhat accident prone PI Harry McGraw for fellow thespian Angela Lansbury's hit show Murder She Wrote. Jerry was on his way to a spin-off series of his own the Law and Harry McGraw. But success was short lived as the series only lasted one season. He'd work in various movies and TV series until Dick Wolf needed to replace the senior detective a second time in as many years on his new Drama Law & Order. According to both Orbach and Wolf, when Jerry asked for some direction on how Wolf wanted him to play the character Lennie Briscoe, Wolf told him to just give him Gus Levy, and so a TV legend was born.

Whether people remember Jerry Orbach from having seen him in one of his many roles on Broadway, or if they will forever think of him as Dr. Houseman Baby's father, or as Gus Levy the tough cop who wouldn't be railroaded, or if he'll always be wisecracking Detective Lennie Briscoe, no matter what it will always be ... nice to remember.