Yesterday, people from TV, film, and Broadway, as well as the public, gathered to pay tribute to the dearly missed Jerry Orbach. The attendees included Angela Lansbury, Al Pacino, Benjamin Bratt, Chris Noth, Jill Hennessy, Jane Alexander, Karen Ziemba, and Dick Wolf, plus many regular New Yorkers who cherished Orbach's contribution as an actor. Former Mayor David Dinkins was there, and Mayor Bloomberg spoke to the crowd, saying, "Briscoe exuded the life of the city in all its moxie...Jerry came to personify New York in both body and soul." NBC President Jeff Zucker and L&O producer Dick Wolf presented Orbach's widow Elaine with a $1 million check for Sloane Kettering's Cancer research fund as well.
The NY Times noted that a former executive producer of L&O, Ed Sherin, read a Shakespeare sonnet, and then his wife and Orbach co-star Jane Alexander read some of the poems Jerry would leave his wife by her coffee, before he'd go film Law & Order:
"A chilly Thursday morning. The wind could freeze your liver.
"And so, where are we filming? 113th and the River."
The Times' Charles Isherwood wrote, "The Shakespeare was touching. So was the Orbach. But the Orbach was funnier." This poem makes Gothamist realize that Jerry really was Briscoe, and we miss him so much. Our posts on Jerry.
Photograph from our lucky visit to Riverside Park when Jerry was filming some of his final scenes as Detective Lennie Briscoe
