Last week, a portion of 53rd Street at 8th Avenue in New York City was renamed Jerry Orbach Way in honor of the star of stage and screen.
I first fell for Orbach's hangdog looks and smart-aleck delivery when he guest-starred as PI Harry McGraw on Murder, She Wrote. I had no idea until years later that he was a Broadway star, earning a Tony award for Promises, Promises in 1969. In the 90s, he appeared in one of my favorite Woody Allen films, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and he voiced the character of Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast. Then, of course, he found everlasting fame as Detective Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order.
I think Lennie was the best. In fact, I stopped watching Law & Order episodes altogether after Orbach passed away in 2004. I still tune into the reruns on cable though. I can't resist those Lennie one liners:
Suspect: "Should I say how I didn't mean to do it?"
Briscoe: "You mean how you only killed him because he wouldn't give you his watch? Yeah, put that in there, the D.A. would really like that."
Logan: "One of these days I'm going to pack up a Winnebago."
Briscoe: "And go where?"
Logan: "Upstate...New Hampshire."
Briscoe: "Right--I spent a year there one weekend."
Limo dispatcher, being questioned about one of his driver's clients: "This was a model? Good lookin'?"
Briscoe: "Right. Not one of those ugly models."
1 comment:
Yeah, Orbach was one of the best things on that show...I think the series (all its franchises too) has been kinda lost lately. The few episodes I catch now and then don't seem to have the snap and sizzle of the earlier ones. Things are a little too formulaic, they've added too much high-tech whizbang stuff to compete with csi, etc. etc.
And god yes, he's phenomenally good in Crimes and Misdemeanors. Woody Allen's been hit or miss too much the last couple decades, but that one was a solid out of the park, out of the next ball park, and the one down the block, and so on. I'd put that one up with Annie Hall and Husbands and Wives as my all-time favorites of his. Matchpoint was quite good too, but then, put Scarlett Johannson in a Tide commercial and I'm THERE.
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