Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor, well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, as well as for being a noted musical theatre star; most notably El Gallo in The Fantasticks, Julian Marsh in 42nd Street, and Billy Flynn in the original production of Chicago.
Orbach was born in th...
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Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor, well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, as well as for being a noted musical theatre star; most notably El Gallo in The Fantasticks, Julian Marsh in 42nd Street, and Billy Flynn in the original production of Chicago.
Orbach was born in the Bronx, the only child of Emily (née Olexy), a greeting card manufacturer and radio singer, and Leon Orbach, a restaurant manager and vaudeville performer. His father was from Hamburg, Germany (of Sephardic Jewish ancestry) and his mother was a Pennsylvania-born Polish American Catholic, and Orbach was raised Catholic (a religious background later replicated in his character on "Law and Order"). Throughout his childhood, the Orbach family moved frequently, living in Mount Vernon, New York; Wilkes-Barre, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania;...
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