Angie Harmon Recalls Singing ‘Be Our Guest’ with Jerry Orbach on “Law & Order ”Set on What Would Have Been Actor’s 91st Birthday
Angie Harmon Recalls Singing ‘Be Our Guest’ with Jerry Orbach on “Law & Order ”Set on What Would Have Been Actor’s 91st Birthday
Angela AndaloroWed, October 21, 2026 at 9:26 PM UTC
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Jerry Orbach and Angie Harmon in ‘Law & Order’ in May 1999Credit: Jessica Burstein/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty -
Angie Harmon shared a memory of Jerry Orbach on what would have been the actor’s 91st birthday
Orbach, who voiced Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast, died of cancer in December 2004 at 69 years old
Orbach opened up about how he felt about voice acting in a 1996 interview
Angie Harmon has special memories from her time working with Jerry Orbach.
Harmon, 54, played assistant district attorney Abbie Carmichael on Law & Order from 1998 to 2001. During her time on the show, she worked with Orbach, who played Detective Lennie Briscoe from 1992 to 2004. Orbach died of cancer in December 2004 at the age of 69.
On Tuesday, Oct. 20, publicist Danny Deraney shared a clip on Threads showing Orbach working with Angela Lansbury to record “Be Our Guest” for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in 1991. He voiced Lumiere, the spirited candelabra, in the animated Disney classic, while Lansbury brought the teapot, Mrs. Potts, to life.
Harmon replied, writing, “You can’t imagine my shock & joy after I had worked with Jerry for 2 years & one day he started singing as Lumiere! I knew every word & after my shrills of happiness I sang with him!! #LawAndOrder”
Jerry Orbach, Lumiere in ‘Beauty and the Beast’Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage; WALT DISNEY PRODUCTIONS / Album
In a 1996 interview, Orbach talked about a time when a parent with her child asked him to voice his character.
“One day a woman walked up to me with a little 7-year-old boy, and she said, ‘Would you do me a favor? Would you say “Oh please, Cogsworth, have a heart!” ’ ” Orbach obliged, and the child gasped.
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“It’s very tough for little kids, to say. ‘No, that’s Lumiere. That’s that little candlestick, you know, with flames.’ But it’s a side of performing that’s an awful lot of fun,” he concluded.
Born in the Bronx, Orbach (whose parents had showbiz aspirations) studied acting at Northwestern University but dropped out because he couldn’t afford the tuition. Soon after, he landed a part in the landmark 1955 Greenwich Village production of The Threepenny Opera, in which he eventually played the lead character, Mack the Knife. He had started out as an understudy.
Orbach worked his way up to Broadway stardom and appeared in hits including Promises, Promises (in which he sang the title song and “What Do Get When You Fall in Love,” among other Burt Bacharach-Hal David hits) and the original production of 42nd Street, in which he sang “The Lullaby of Broadway.”
The actor won a Tony Award in 1969 for Promises, Promises and was also nominated for a Tony for his roles in both Chicago and Guys and Dolls.
“I really wanted to be a serious film actor like Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift,” Orbach told PEOPLE in 2000, adding that his profile turned off producers. “They’d say, ‘Your nose is too big, your eyes are too droopy. You’re no Tyrone Power.’ But because I could sing, I kept getting jobs in musicals.”
Orbach’s movie career was sporadic but memorable, and included roles in Sidney Lumet’s 1981 Prince of the City, 1986’s F/X and 1987’s Dirty Dancing.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
