HIS L&O PARTNERS REMEMBER ORBACH

During Jerry Orbach's 12-year stint as world-weary NYPD homicide detective Lennie Briscoe, Law & Order fans could be certain of two things: death and Briscoe's wisecracks. "Crazy don't mean stupid—my ex-wife's living proof," the twice—divorced cop once quipped. In contrast, his portrayer could be anything but crusty. "I'm certainly not as tough as Lennie," he told PEOPLE in 2000. "I don't put a gun on every morning." Instead, Orbach, who died of prostate cancer Dec. 28 at age 69, disarmed his cast-mates with easygoing charm. Past and recent costars such as Sam Waterston, S. Epatha Merkerson and Jill Hennessy attended his funeral Dec. 31, along with Brian Dennehy, Olympia Dukakis and The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli (who joins the L&O cast this spring).

He was just as friendly with fans who stopped him on the street near his New York City home. "I never saw him put on airs, because he just didn't have any," says Chris Orbach, 36, an actor and musician and one of two sons from the actor's first marriage, to actress Marta Orbach. "He was never standoffish."

"He always just wanted to be a normal, approachable human being," says Chita Rivera, his costar in the original 1975 Broadway production of Chicago, where he met his second wife, Elaine Cancilla (then Rivera's understudy). Married for 25 years, "they were inseparable," says Rivera. Elaine, 64, was at her husband's bedside at Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center during his final moments.

"He had been battling [prostate cancer] for over 10 years, but he kept it private," says his agent Robert Malcolm. "Most of the time he was fine"—well enough to complete three episodes of the latest L&O spinoff, Trial by Jury, premiering in March. But his cancer, says Malcolm, "got aggressive, and he started a new round of chemotherapy last spring." Still, Orbach continued to work. "I hadn't a clue" that he was ill, says Rivera, who appeared with the actor at a recent Lincoln Center benefit. "He came out and sang Try to Remember' [from his 1960 breakthrough role in The Fantasticks]. Forty years later and that voice was still there."

Mike Lipton. Liza Hamm and Sharon Cotliar in New York City