New York ? Jerry Orbach had a gift for charming audiences his entire career — first as a song-and-dance man who starred in musicals on and off Broadway, then for 12 years as a sharp-tongued cop on TV’s “Law & Order.”

Along the way, he made films as varied as the gritty crime drama “The Prince and the City” and the smash romance “Dirty Dancing.”

Orbach, who died of prostate cancer Tuesday in Manhattan, was beginning another chapter at age 69: He had taken his signature role as Detective Lennie Briscoe to NBC’s upcoming spinoff “Law & Order: Trial By Jury.”

Orbach had announced in early December that he had prostate cancer. His manager said at the time that he had been receiving treatment since spring, but declined to disclose any particulars about the seriousness of his condition.

Orbach is expected to appear in early “Trial By Jury” episodes when the show premieres in March.

Orbach started his career as a hoofer who also could carry a tune. Beginning in the 1960s, he starred on Broadway in hit musicals including “Carnival,” “Promises, Promises” (for which he won a Tony Award), “42nd Street” and “Chicago.”

“He was an anchor who brought style, security and razzle-dazzle to our original ‘Chicago’ company,” said Chita Rivera, Orbach’s co-star in that 1975 production. “He was a swell guy.”

In 1960, he was in the original cast of the off-off-Broadway hit “The Fantasticks,” playing the Narrator who sang the evocative “Try to Remember.” That show went on to run for more than 40 years.

Lights on Broadway marquees were dimmed for one minute at curtain time Wednesday night in Orbach’s memory.

Among his film appearances were parts in Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Dirty Dancing” (in which he played Jennifer Grey’s protective dad) and the animated “Beauty and the Beast,” in which he voiced the role of the candlestick Lumiere, singing “Be Our Guest.”

In “Chicago,” Orbach played money-loving lawyer Billy Flynn, the role Richard Gere inherited in the 2002 film. It was also in that show that he met dancer Elaine Cancilla, whom he married in 1979.

She survives him, as well as sons Chris and Tony from his first marriage.