Biography
Jerome Bernard Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the series Law & Order (1992–2004) and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), as well as for being a noted musical theatre star; his prominent roles included originating the character of El Gallo in The Fantasticks, the longest-running musical play in history, as Chuck Baxter in the original production of Promises, P...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age
2021
as Self
Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age explores the world of Broadway from 1959 through the early 1980s as recounted by a diverse cast of Broadway stars who ...

Howard
2018
as Self / Lumiere (archive footage)
Though legendary lyricist Howard Ashman died far too young, his impact on Broadway, movies, and the culture at large were incalculable. Told entirely ...

Waking Sleeping Beauty
2009
as Self (archive footage)
By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovat...

Disney Princess Sing Along Songs, Vol. 2 - Enchanted Tea Party
2005
as Lumiere (voice)
It's an enchanted royal tea party, and your little princess is the guest of honor! There, she can sing along with all her favorite Disney Princesses a...

Broadway's Lost Treasures III: The Best of The Tony Awards
2005
as Chuck Baxter (segment "Promises, Promises") (archive footage)
Broadway royalty and Tony-winners Tommy Tune, Carol Channing, Robert Goulet, and Harvey Fierstein are your hosts for this third compilation of great m...

Broadway's Lost Treasures II
2004
as Host (segment "Revivals and Record Breakers") / Billy Flynn (segment "Chicago")
The annual Tony Award broadcast provides the only filmed record of Broadway's best for audiences to experience as if they were front-row-center on ope...

Law & Order: Corruption Empire
2003
A DVD release consisting of the Season 7 episode "Corruption" and the Season 9 episode "Empire", stitched together. In reverse order, with only one se...

Late Night with Conan O'Brien: 10th Anniversary Special
2003
as Self
Conan O'Brien celebrates ten years of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" in this one-hour special. Many guest appearances and clip montages show us how f...

Broadway's Lost Treasures
2003
as Host (segment "Broadway Divas") / Julian Marsh (segment "42nd Street")
The golden age of the annual Tony Awards ceremony lasted from 1967 to 1986 — the period during which Alexander H. Cohen and his wife, Hildy Parks, wer...

Try to Remember: The Fantasticks
2003
as Self
On the eve of the final Off-Broadway performance of the long-running musical "The Fantasticks," filmmaker Eli Kabillio takes a wistful look back at th...

Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
2003
as Self
Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award...

Manna from Heaven
2002
as Waltz Contest Announcer
Manna From Heaven is a comedic fable about what happens when you get a gift from God (a financial windfall), but many years later you find out it was ...

The Hustler: The Inside Story
2002
as Self - Actor
A brief overview of The Hustler's making and the players involved.

Prince of Central Park
2000
as Businessman
A young boy sets out to find his mother. After setting up camp in Central Park, he encounters a group of people even needier than himself.

Chinese Coffee
2000
as Jake Manheim
When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, o...

The Acting Class
2000
as Self
A comedy about an exceptionally dysfunctional acting class. Playing unsuspecting college students, Liz and Jill set off to find the most influential a...

Belle's Tales of Friendship
1999
as Lumiere (voice)
Two different stories: in the first one a group of children walk into the store eager to hear Belle's stories, as she is noted to be a great storytell...

Serial Killers: Profiling the Criminal Mind
1999
as Narrator
Former FBI agent John Douglas, the inventor of criminal profiling, leads a journey into the minds of the 20th Century's most notorious killers, includ...

Exiled
1998
as Detective Lenny Briscoe
NYPD Detective Mike Logan, who was reassigned to Staten Island after punching a corrupt politician, takes on a grisly murder case. When the investigat...

Belle's Magical World
1998
as Lumiere (voice)
Belle, the Beast, Lumiere, Cogsworth and the rest of those zany castle residents use their imaginations to embark on three magical, storybook adventur...

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas
1997
as Lumiere (voice)
Astonished to find the Beast has a deep-seeded hatred for the Christmas season, Belle endeavors to change his mind on the matter.

Aladdin and the King of Thieves
1996
as Sa'luk (voice)
Legendary secrets are revealed as Aladdin and his friends—Jasmine, Abu, Carpet and, of course, the always entertaining Genie—face all sorts of terrify...

The Cemetery Club
1993
as Jake Rubin (uncredited)
The story of three Pittsburgh widows who meet every year to visit their husband's graves and talk about perspectives in their lives.

Mastergate
1992
as Clifton Byers
A "play on words" about a fictional political scandal concerning covert arms deals and double-dealing government operatives, satirizing the Watergate ...

Mr. Saturday Night
1992
as Phil Gussman
Buddy Young was the comic's comic, beloved by everyone. Now, playing to miniscule crowds in nursing homes, it seems like everybody but Buddy realizes ...

Universal Soldier
1992
as Dr. Christopher Gregor
An American soldier who had been killed during the Vietnam War is revived 25 years later by the military as a semi-android, UniSols, a high-tech soldi...

Straight Talk
1992
as Milo Jacoby
Honest and straightforward small-town Shirlee Kenyon chucks her boyfriend and heads for Chicago. Accidentally having to host a radio problem phone-in ...

Quiet Killer
1992
as Dr. Vincent Califano
On her way home in a plane to New York, the teenage Sarah gets very ill. She realizes too late that it's more than a cold and with her parents still o...

Broadway Bound
1992
as Jack Jerome
Eugene and Stanley Jerome try to break into show biz as comedy writers while their parents' marriage ends.

Beauty and the Beast
1991
as Lumiere (voice)
Follow the adventures of Belle, a bright young woman who finds herself in the castle of a prince who's been turned into a mysterious beast. With the h...

Delirious
1991
as Lou Sherwood
A soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character in his own show.

Delusion
1991
as Larry
In this fast-paced, noirish road movie, a computer expert embezzles half a million dollars and races off to Reno to start anew. Unfortunately, en rout...

A Gnome Named Gnorm
1991
as Stan Walton
A young Los Angeles police officer and a mysterious gnome become unlikely partners as they track a killer. When a sting operation goes awry, officer C...

Toy Soldiers
1991
as Albert Trotta (uncredited)
After federal agents arrest a drug czar and put him on trial, the cartel leader's vicious son storms a prep school and takes its students hostage. The...

Out for Justice
1991
as Ronny Donziger
Gino Felino is an NYPD detective from Brooklyn who knows everyone and everything in his neighborhood. Killing his partner was someone's big mistake......

Perry Mason: The Case of the Ruthless Reporter
1991
as Vic St. John
Perry is at TV station "KGGY" to be interviewed but thanks to the interference of main anchor-person Brett Huston the interview is pulled. Mostly ever...

Dead Women in Lingerie
1991
as Mr. Bartoli
A private detective is hired to catch a serial killer who makes immigrant garment workers his victims.

California Casanova
1991
as Constantin Rominoffski
Stagehand at a nightclub falls for one of the performers. He wins her heart after taking lessons on suavity from a gigolo "count".

In Defense of a Married Man
1990
as Alan Michelson
When a defense lawyer's adulterous husband becomes the prime suspect in the murder of the woman he was cheating with, his wife chooses to defend him. ...

Kojak: None So Blind
1990
as Tony Salducci
After a flighty young woman accidentally witnesses a Mob hit in an Italian restaurant, New York Police Inspector Theo Kojak must both protect her from...

Crimes and Misdemeanors
1989
as Jack Rosenthal
A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an ...

Last Exit to Brooklyn
1989
as Boyce
A gallery of characters in Brooklyn in the 1950s are crushed by their surroundings and selves: a union strike leader discovers he is gay; a prostitute...

Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder
1989
as Blaine Counter
A young theatre director is accused of killing a more famous Broadway director. Perry takes his case.
Irving Berlin's 100th Birthday Celebration
1988
as Self
The life, career, and music of Irving Berlin are celebrated live on stage with musical performances.

Someone to Watch Over Me
1987
as Lt. Garber
Claire Gregory, an upper class New York personality, witnesses a murder in a luxurious nightclub. Detective Mike Keegan, recently promoted, is assigne...

Dirty Dancing
1987
as Dr. Jake Houseman
Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find hersel...

I Love N.Y.
1987
as Leo
Photographer Mario Cotone is hired to cover a big N.Y. actor. When his pretty daughter Nicole Yeats (N.Y.) and Mario fall in love, this angers her fat...

Love Among Thieves
1987
as Spicer
Caroline DuLac, a baroness and concert pianist, steals three jewel-encrusted Faberge eggs from a San Francisco museum. The eggs were demanded as ranso...

F/X
1986
as Nicholas DeFranco
A movies special effects man is hired by a government agency to help stage the assassination of a well known gangster. When the agency double cross hi...

The Imagemaker
1986
as Byron Caine
Roger Blackwell has been a media advisor to countless politicians: probably one too many. He is set on using his experience to make a film about manip...

Brewster's Millions
1985
as Charley Pegler
Monty Brewster, an aging minor-league baseball player, stands to inherit $300 million if he can successfully spend $30 million in 30 days without anyt...

Night of 100 Stars II
1985
as Self
This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was t...
The Streets
1984
as Sgt. Max Grozzo
Undercover cops Wreade & Grozzo (Beck & Orbach) are searching for the identity of a gang leader who is selling handguns to people for their self prote...

The Magic of Herself the Elf
1983
as King Thorn (voice)
Herself must stop an evil king from upsetting the balance of nature in this animated adventure.

An Invasion of Privacy
1983
as Sam Bianchi
A woman on a remote island is raped by a local resident and finds her fight for justice impeded by community prejudice.

Plaza Suite
1982
as Roy Hubley / Jesse Kiplinger / Sam Nash
HBO filmed version of the Neil Simon play (filmed in front of a live audience) has three separate acts set in the same hotel suite in New York's Plaza...

Night of 100 Stars
1982
as Self
The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City ...

Prince of the City
1981
as Gus Levy
New York City detective Daniel Ciello agrees to help the United States Department of Justice help eliminate corruption in the police department, as lo...

Underground Aces
1981
as Herbert Penlittle
The escapades of a crew of zany parking lot attendants.

Alex and the Doberman Gang
1980
as Rogers
A more than slightly incompetent private eye inherits five doberman pinschers. The dogs at first create havoc with Alex's home and personal life, but ...

The Sentinel
1977
as Michael Dayton
As a young girl, Alison Parker attempted suicide after being traumatized by her father's sexual exploits. Now an elite fashion model, she moves to a B...

Fore Play
1975
as Jerry Lorsey
A three-part omnibus centered around sex and its discontents.

Mitzi... A Tribute to the American Housewife
1974
as Self
Mitzi Gaynor and guests Ted Knight (Mary Tyler Moore Show), Jerry Orbach (Chicago), Suzanne Pleshette (Bob Newhart Show) and Jane Withers in music, da...

A Fan's Notes
1972
as Fred Exley
A writer has a mental breakdown, unable to deal with the society around him.

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
1971
as Kid Sally
A Brooklyn mobster and his gang try to rub out their rivals.

Annie Get Your Gun
1967
as Charles Davenport
TV Movie musical of wild west sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!
1965
as Pinkerton
During the Cold War, John Goldfarb crashes his spy plane in the Middle East and is taken prisoner by the local government. His captor, King Fawz, soon...

Bye Bye Birdie
1963
as Bob (Ed Sullivan Show Producer) (uncredited)
A singer goes to a small town for a performance before he is drafted.

Mad Dog Coll
1961
as Joe Clegg
Killer Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll moves in on gangster Dutch Schultz in 1920s New York.

24 Hours in a Woman's Life
1961
as Cristof
Helen Lester is in love with a man she has known just 24 hours, a playboy who spent time in jail for passing bad checks. Though the man has promised t...

Cop Hater
1958
as Mumzer
Members of the 87th Precinct search for a cop killer who has already murdered two of their own.

Guys and Dolls
1955
as Barbershop Patron (uncredited)
Gambler Nathan Detroit has few options for the location of his big craps game. Needing $1,000 to pay a garage owner to host the game, Nathan bets Sky ...

Marty
1955
as Ballroom Patron (uncredited)
Marty, a butcher who lives in the Bronx with his mother is unmarried at 34. Good-natured but socially awkward he faces constant badgering from family ...