This morning's subway commute made us do a double take. Because we saw Jerry Orbach looking at us and the other riders from an ad! The Eye Bank for Sight Restoration has launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to become eye donors. As it happens, today, the Daily News has a story about the Orbach donation:
The Broadway and TV star donated his eyes when he died in December 2004, giving sight to two women who needed new corneas.
"I cannot remember a day that went by where he didn't say, 'I want to donate my eyes,' " Orbach's widow, Elaine, recalled yesterday.
A prostate-cancer patient at the time of his death at age 69, the Bronx-born Orbach did not donate any other organs, she said. "He never wore glasses. He could read in the dark, practically - just this wonderful vision he was so proud of."
Radio and TV ads use Obrach's son Chris as the voiceover who says, "For two New Yorkers, his greatest role was that of an eye donor." The Daily News's headline is "Years after his death, Orbach still a class act." Ain't that the truth. Elaine Orbach also told the News, "He believed in the body continuing, if it's possible. What greater gift than if you must pass this world: that if something is still working, to give [it] to somebody who doesn't have a chance? I just believe he's very happy about that. This was his wish."
The Eye Bank for Sight Restoration has information about eye donations. And we miss Jerry Orbach very much.
