The actor Jerry Orbach was memorialized yesterday for his work on the Broadway stage and his 12-year run as Detective Lennie Briscoe on TV’s “Law and Order,” in which he, Mayor Bloomberg said, “became the face of the NYPD.”

A crowd of about 1,000, composed of the cast of “Law and Order,” theater friends, and fans, gathered at the Richard Rogers Theater on 46th Street to remember Orbach’s five decade career in show business.

Angela Lansbury said, “We shared some of the great golden years of Broadway.” Ms. Lansbury once cast Orbach in a guest role on “Murder She Wrote” that was spun off to become Orbach’s first starring role in a TV series, “The Law and Harry McGraw.”

But the majority of Orbach’s career was spent on the New York stage, starting with “The Fantasticks,” where he introduced what would become his personal theme song, “Try to Remember,” in 1960. What followed was a series of starring roles in the top Broadway musicals of the 1960s and 1970s, with highlights including “Promises, Promises,” “Chicago,” and “42nd Street.” Actor Sam Waterston, serving as the memorial’s emcee, said that Orbach “gave more performances as a lead in a Broadway musical than any other actor in the history of the world.” Orbach was “Mr. Broadway, the Babe Ruth of the boards, and his record will be very hard to beat,” said Mr. Waterston.

Mr. Waterston, who played opposite Orbach in “Law and Order” as the executive assistant district attorney, John J. “Jack” McCoy, recalled Orbach’s formula for show business success. When asked how it was that in all his years in theater, he had only been in one Broadway flop, Orbach explained, “Whenever I needed money, I said ‘yes!'”

It is well-known that Orbach was long in the habit of writing a few lines of doggerel to his wife each morning before heading out on early calls for “Law and Order.”

“I kept them in a soup tureen that David Merrick gave us,” explained Elaine Orbach.

Jane Alexander, who starred with Orbach in “6 Rms Riv Vu” beginning in 1972, read a generous selection of the poems, which compensated with heartfelt emotion what they lacked as subtlety. “I love you even more than Hallmark could,” went one. A second: “A chilly winter morning/ The wind could freeze your liver/ And so where are we filming?/ 113th St. on the river.”

Orbach and his wife met as cast members in the original Broadway production of Chicago, also at the Richard Rogers Theater. She was then understudy for Chita Rivera’s Velma Kelly, a job that was about as hectic as the Maytag Man’s. Ms. Orbach retired from the stage when they married.

Karen Ziemba, a memorable Roxy Hart in the Broadway revival of “Chicago,” sang “They Were You,” another one of the soaring ballads from “The Fantasticks.” Recalling working with Orbach in “42nd Street,” Ms. Ziemba said, “He taught me to give a stage kiss. My first, by the way, professionally.”

A professor at the New York University Film School, Richard Brown, said he became close to Orbach after inviting him as a guest lecturer for a class. They became friends, Mr. Brown said, and often took cruises together, including once to Greece. At a taverna on an Aegean island, a local, speaking no English, told Orbach in Greek, roughly translated, “We love you, ‘Dirty Dancing’ Daddy!”

“It’s Jake,” Orbach told Mr. Brown with a sigh, meaning Jake Houseman, the father in the 1987 film. “He follows me all over the world.”

A video montage of clips from “Law and Order” and a final rendition of Orbach singing “Try to Remember” reminded those in attendance that Orbach’s legacy will live on.