Jerry Orbach

Born: 20 October 1935
Where: New York

Orbach studied drama at the University of Illinois before transferring to Northwestern. He then went to study acting in New York and got constant work in musicals.

A Tony Award-winning veteran of the New York musical theater, Orbach made his film debut in 1958's Cop Hater and later became a staple on series television.

Film roles were sporadic during the 1960s and 70s while he appeared in several productions onstage including the long-running Off-Broadway sensation The Fantasticks. A breakthrough came with his Tony-nominated turn as Sky Masterson in the 1965 revival of Guys and Dolls. He later won the Tony for Promises, Promises in 1969.

Boosted by his stage success, Orbach played his first lead in features in the gangster spoof, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, but the modest success of the film and his subsequent ventures kept Orbach primarily onstage.

In the early 80s, Orbach made a rare film appearance, as a crooked cop in Sidney Lumet's crime saga Prince of the City.

1985 saw increased feature film work, but it was really his memorable performance as the concerned father in the surprise hit Dirty Dancing which insured a prolific career in features.

Orbach was also excellent as the shady, mob-connected brother of Martin Landau in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors and as detectives in Someone to Watch Over Me and Out for Justice.

He has continued to enjoy a good variety of roles in films ranging from Last Exit to Brooklyn to Delirious to Mr. Saturday Night.

He reached out to a different audience providing the French-accented voice of the candelabra Lumiere in Disney's Oscar-nominated animated feature Beauty and the Beast.

Orbach also found increased activity in TV, with miniseries and TV-movies and a recurring role as a detective on Murder, She Wrote.

In 1992, he joined the cast of courtroom drama Law & Order, for which he earned a 2000 Emmy nomination, then in 1997 he co-starred in Chinese Coffee opposite director-star Al Pacino.