BEIJING, Dec. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Jerry Orbach, who was acclaimed as quintessence on the New York stage -- one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television as a New York detective on NBC's "Law & Order" -- died from cancer on Tuesday night at the age of 69.

    

Jerry Orbach, who was acclaimed as quintessence on the New York stage -- one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television as a New York detective on NBC's "Law & Order" -- died from cancer on Tuesday night at the age of 69.

According to his agent, Robert Malcom, he died at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center late on Tuesday and the cause was prostate cancer.

    Despite suffering cancer, his death came as a surprise. Orbach's manager Robert Malcolm said earlier this month the actor had been receiving treatment for prostate cancer but that the prognosis was good. "We expect he'll be fine," Malcolm told the New York Daily News.

    Born in the Bronx in 1935, he was the son of a former vaudevillian and a radio singer. He went to the University of Illinois and Northwestern University before returning to New York to study with method-acting guru Lee Strasberg.

    "It was just sort of understood," he said in a 2003 Playbill interview about his career choice. "It was never a decision that I made at a certain point. When I was nine years old, they picked me for the leading role in a school play. ... I think I always knew I was going to be a performer."

    Dick Wolf, creator and producer of "Law & Order," called Orbach "a legendary figure of 20th century show business, who was a star of screen, stage and television."

    Orbach starred for 12 seasons in the original "Law & Order" television series as Detective Lennie Briscoe and was set to star in a new spinoff in March.  
 
  ¡¡In performances that spanned half a century, the Bronx-born Mr. Orbach came to embody two beloved New York archetypes: the musical matinee idol, to which he gave a refreshingly modern spin with his rugged and idiosyncratic persona, and the shrewd, irascible cop, a role he honed to a razor's edge as Detective Lennie Briscoe on "Law & Order."

    Mr.. Orbach's other important roles on stage included Mack the Knife in the landmark off-Broadway production of "The Threepenny Opera" in the late 1950's and El Gallo, the benevolently interactive narrator in "The Fantasticks," which was staged at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in 1960 and went on to become the longest-running musical in New York. Walter Kerr, writing about that performance in The New York Herald Tribune, said, "Mr. Orbach is no doubt on his way."

    He also appeared as the misanthropic puppeteer in "Carnival" in 1961 and was nominated for a Tony award for playing Sky Masterson in the 1965 revival of "Guys and Dolls." He won the Tony for best actor in a musical for "Promises, Promises."

    He is survived by his wife, Elaine, and two sons. Enditem

    (Agencies)