Doris Belack, Actress Known for Many TV Roles, Including a Judge on Law & Order
Belack also gained attention as a tough sopa opera producer in the Oscar-winnig film Tootsie.
Doris Belack, an actress best known for her roles as a judge on the NBC television series Law & Order and as a soap opera producer in the movie Tootsie, died October 11, 2011, in New York City. She was 85.
According to news reports, Belack’s death came four months after the death of her husband, Philip Rose, a Broadway producer of such plays as A Raisin in the Sun and Purlie Victorious. The couple was married for 65 years.
In addition to numerous Broadway appearances, Belack began working in television in the early 1960s. She had parts in The Patty Duke Show, The Defenders, Barney Miller, Family Ties and The Cosby Show, and a recurring role in the soap opera One Life to Live from 1968 to 1977. In the 1990s she appeared as Judge Margaret Barry on Law & Order.
Her most notable film role came in 1982, when she was cast in Tootsie as a tough television producer who unwittingly hires Dustin Hoffman, as disguised as a woman, for a female role in a popular soap opera.
Belack was born on February 26, 1926, in New York City. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Upon graduation from high school she joined a summer stock theater company. Soon afterward she met Philip Rose, who at the time was an actor and singer.
The couple’s commitment to racial equality and civil rights led to the 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, Rose’s first play as a producer.
In later years, Belack did commercials and voice-over work, and continued to audition regularly until the week before she died.