Jerry Orbach: Singing a New Tune in His Career

Typical interview with television actor:

Parents wrung hands over decision to go into acting. Came to New York, took acting lessons, struggled for years waiting for big break. Hollywood beckoned. Finally found success in movies, television. Still yearns for first love--theater.

Interview with Jerry Orbach, star of CBS’ “The Law and Harry McGraw:”

Parents thought acting career just dandy. Moved to New York, took acting lessons, immediately landed jobs in musical comedy because of singing ability. Yearned to go Hollywood, but kept getting starring roles on darned old Broadway--”Carnival,” “Promises, Promises,” “Chicago,” “42nd Street.” Now finally has own television series, leaving stage behind.

“I’m different,” Orbach said over lunch at a Midtown restaurant.

“I’ve been on the stage for 35 years, so I don’t need to exercise those muscles for a while, or don’t feel a need to get back to it. I find working in front of the camera a different kind of challenge, but just as exciting. You don’t get the applause after every scene like you did in the theater, but that doesn’t matter to me.”

His show is not exactly typical, either, having been canceled halfway through its first season before getting an unusual reprieve from the network.

It was a spinoff from CBS’ most successful series, “Murder, She Wrote.” Orbach plays a seedy private eye whose office is across the hall from a blue-blood lawyer, played by Barbara Babcock.

Reportedly the producers of “Murder, She Wrote” leaned on the network to keep “The Law and Harry McGraw” on the air. CBS relented and is moving “Harry” from Tuesday to Wednesday beginning Jan. 13. It will replace “The Oldest Rookie.”

Orbach was born in the Bronx, but his parents moved to Waukegan, Ill., when he was a child. Instead of worrying about their only child’s decision to become an actor, Orbach’s mother and restaurant manager father encouraged him. They had aspired to show-biz careers too.

“My mother was singer. My father tried being a comic for a while, but had to go to work,” Orbach said. “I guess the Depression got in the way of that. But at any rate, they were very supportive of me going into acting. They weren’t people who said, ‘Oh, no, you can’t do that.’ They said, ‘Great, go ahead.’ ”

He studied acting at Northwestern University, then came back to New York to study at the acting schools of Lee Strasberg and Herbert Berghof.

“When I was a kid, my heroes really were Brando and Montgomery Clift and James Dean. I wanted to be in the movies,” Orbach said. “I got to New York merely to study and try to work, and because I could sing I kept getting jobs in musicals. All my friends who weren’t working were forced to go to California and became movie stars.

“Then I got married, my kids were born, we were raising a family here in New York, and I just sort of stayed on, stayed with the theater. Now, in a sense, I’m finally getting what I always wanted to do.”

He left “42nd Street” about three years ago, just about the same time he decided he wanted a television series.

Why? He laughs. “Fame and money,” he says.

He did a couple of pilots, cop shows inspired no doubt by his most notable movie role up to that point, in “Prince of the City.” He recently co-starred in the hit movie “Dirty Dancing,” playing Jennifer Grey’s father.

“Whether it’s film or stage or nightclub or whatever you want to do, if you come off a successful series, people know who you are, you have a better chance of doing what you want,” Orbach said.