Jerome Bernard Jerry Orbach was an American actor and singer, described at his death as one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television and a versatile stage and film actor.
Orbach was born on October 20, 1935, in the Bronx, the only child of Emily , a greeting card manufacturer and radio singer, and Leon Orbach, a restaurant manager and vaudeville performer. His father was a Sephardic Jewish immigrant from Hamburg, Germany. His mother, a native of Pennsylvania, was a Roman Catholic of PolishLithuanian descent, and Orbach was raised in her faith . Throughout his childhood, the Orbach family moved frequently, living in Mount Vernon, New York WilkesBarre, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania Springfield, Massachusetts and Waukegan, Illinois. Orbach attended Waukegan High School in Illinois and graduated in 1952 . He played on the football team and began learning acting in a speech class. The summer after graduating from high school, Orbach worked at the theatre of Chevy Chase Country Club of Wheeling, Illinois, and enrolled at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in the fall. In 1953, Orbach returned to the Chicago area and enrolled at Northwestern
Source: Wikipedia