Career: On graduating, Orbach moved to New York where he gained regular roles in musicals. Struggled to get film and TV work, but eventually made his cinema debut in 1958's Cop Hater. Since then he's divided his time between stage and screen and has been nominated for a Tony award for roles in Guys and Dolls and the original production of Chicago. Film work includes Dirty Dancing, F/X, Someone to Watch Over Me and Last Exit to Brooklyn. Among his TV roles are The Law and Harry McGraw, Dream West, and Law and Order. He died on December 28, 2004.

Career: Noth studied acting with Sandford Meisner in New York and at the Yale School of Drama. He made his film debut in 1981's Waitress! and eventually caught producers' interest with a solid performance in Off Beat in 1986. Roles in I'll Take Manhattan and Baby Boom followed, and he became a household name in the US thanks to his part as Detective Mike Logan in Law and Order. He quit after five years with the show. Sex and the City introduced him to an international audience in 1998. He's also appeared on the big screen in the show's spin-off movies, as well as Cast Away, The Glass House and My One and Only. His recent work includes The Good Wife and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Career: Waterston made his showbiz debut in 1965 appearing in The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean and Dr Kildare. A string of projects followed, including Generation, Three, The Glass Menagerie, The Great Gatsby, Capricorn One, Eagle's Wing and Heaven's Gate. He received an Oscar-nomination as journalist Sydney Schanberg in acclaimed 1984 movie The Killing Fields. He's also appeared in Hannah and Her Sisters, September, Serial Mom and The Newsroom. Between 1994 and 2010, he played Jack McCoy in 333 episodes of Law & Order, a role he reprised for the two spin-off shows, Special Victims Unit and Trial By Jury, as well as Homicide: Life on the Street.

Career: Hill made his big-screen debut in 1950 alongside screen siren Hedy Lamarr in A Lady Without Passport. Following another two years in the Navy, he returned to acting and forged a successful career. Further stage work garnered huge acclaim, but it was film and TV work that made him a familiar face. While involved in the play A Far Country in 1961, he re-evaluated his faith and was prompted to explore his religion. In 1966 he landed the part of team leader Daniel Briggs in Mission: Impossible, but left in 1967, allegedly due to the shooting schedules requiring him to work on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. After a decade out of the limelight, he returned to the industry in the late 1970s and has worked consistently since. In recent years, he impressed a new generation of fans as District Attorney Adam Schiff in Law & Order, a part he played for 10 years between 1990 and 2000.