By Michael Wilson, The New York Times
To most of the world, a New York City detective is a cynical, sarcastic flatfoot with alimony headaches and a smart mouth - “Crazy don’t mean stupid. My ex-wife’s living proof.” He survives on a strict diet of street-cart coffee and hot dogs and pretzels with mustard. When he gets to the crime scene, he asks, “Whatta we got?” and when he claps the handcuffs on his suspects or says something clever, two deep metallic sounds ring out: DOYNG-DOYNG!
To many people with television sets, the actor Jerry Orbach, as Detective Lennie Briscoe on “Law & Order,” was as close as it got to one of New York City’s 6,000 real detectives. He could be found at work every day, cracking cases and cracking wise in syndication and reruns around the clock. His death on Tuesday night felt to many in the New York City Police Department like a loss of one of their own.
“He was, to a lot of people in the rest of world, the face of the New York Police Department,” said Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, speaking quietly, even solemnly, after a press conference on Wednesday. “He did it very well. He has human frailties, and he overcame them. He portrayed New York City police officers as hard working, but as human beings with the same pressures and intentions human beings have. It was very believable.”
Next to nothing was ever revealed about Briscoe’s personal life. All viewers ever saw was the detective at work, all bright teeth and old ties, even on the day after Mr. Orbach died. It was a rerun on Wednesday, the one in which the antiwar protester gets killed. “Well,” Briscoe said after meeting one right-wing suspect, “I don’t particularly like him, but I don’t like him for Teague’s murder, either.”
DOYNG-DOYNG.