Over the course of Law & Order's remarkable 20-season run, the procedural hit produced
many beloved stars - and bid many of them farewell. The reasons for leaving varies
from person to person, but here are the reasons why so many stars quit Law & Order. Dun-Dun!
Chris Noth was one of the first breakout stars of the Law & Order franchise. He debuted in the
show's pilot episode as cocky junior detective Mike Logan, and remained on the show for five
years until his character was written out in 1995. Detective Logan, always a bit of a hothead,
suffered a forced transfer to a police unit in Staten Island as punishment for punching
a local politician on trial for murder. Noth would do well for himself in TV, co-starring on
Sex and the City as main love interest "Mr. Big," disgraced attorney Peter Florick on The Good Wife,
and reprising the Detective Logan character in the latter seasons of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
There were certainly no hard feelings when Noth left the original Law & Order. Producers let him
go after five seasons because they couldn't afford him. Producer Dick Wolf told the AP
that Noth was set to renegotiate his contract, and if he'd stayed on, they wouldn't have been
able to afford his pay raise. Dolores Robinson, head of Noth's management team, told the outlet:
"He's really sorry that they couldn't get it together, but he's had five great years."
It may come as a shock to some, but Law & Order really only ever produced one viable
big-screen force: Benjamin Bratt. From 1995 to 1999, Bratt portrayed Detective Rey Curtis,
a guy who tries his best to be an upstanding family man cursed with
a nasty temper that he takes out on suspects. Bratt received an Emmy nomination for his work,
one of just five Law & Order regulars bestowed with the honor. Still,
after nearly 100 episodes, Bratt was ready to move on, telling the New York Post -
"After four years I've felt like it was time to get back home to my family."
Bratt, who got married in 2002 and welcomed his first kid in 2003,
was not done with acting, however, starring in hits like Miss Congeniality, and Doctor Strange.
Fred Thompson brought an air of authority and a palpable world-weary sensibility to
his Law & Order role of powerful district attorney Arthur Branch. He pulled from real
world experience — in the 1970s, he served as U.S. Senate counsel during Congress' investigation
into President Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate break-in scandal. In 1977,
after Tennessee Parole Board chair Marie Ragghianti challenged deep-seated corruption
and then sued for wrongful termination when she was fired, Thompson represented her,
and then played himself in Marie, the 1990 movie about Ragghianti's case.
Thompson proved to be a magnetic screen presence, but then went back into the political sphere,
winning a special election to the U.S. Senate representing Tennessee in 1994,
before being re-elected to a full term in 1996. Opting not to run again in 2002,
Thompson came aboard Law & Order, then left to give politics another try,
this time with his eye on the 2008 Republican nomination for president.
"You know one day this chair's gonna be empty."
"I'm no politician Arthur."
"Yeah… Everybody says that."
He didn't do well in early primaries and quickly ended his presidential run,
then took on a few more acting roles before his death in 2015.
Golden Globe-winning character actor Michael Moriarty brought dramatic skill and seriousness
to his role as Ben Stone, Executive Assistant District Attorney for New York County. After a
witness in a racketeering case Stone pressures into testifying winds up killed by an organized
crime syndicate, he resigns his post and leaves the New York legal system.
The circumstances of his departure were even more dramatic than that of his character.
As the Los Angeles Times recounted, in 1993, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno
advocated legislation that would restrict violence on television,
which many cultural watchdogs blamed for a slew of real-life crimes. Reno convened
a meeting with NBC executives, as well as Law & Order producer Dick Wolf, who brought Moriarty.
The outlet went on to note that he was so incensed by what he felt was the Attorney
General's disdain for both television and freedom of speech that he publicly denounced her ideas.
Moriarty couldn't get much of a movement going and got so fed up with the American
television industry that he quit his Law & Order gig, according to CinemaRetro.
He relocated to Canada and has only occasionally acted since.
Since they're already in New York, many theater actors moonlighted on Law & Order,
one of the few major dramatic TV productions that filmed in New York in the 1990s and 2000s.
Among them: Jesse L. Martin. After a couple of roles in Broadway shows, Martin landed the part
that would change his career: HIV-positive college professor Tom Collins in the original production
of Rent, an award winning major commercial hit and culturally important rock musical.
Launched to fame by the beloved show, Martin joined the regular cast of Law & Order in 1999
as Junior Detective Ed Green, partner to Jerry Orbach's seasoned Lennie Briscoe.
Martin turned out one of the longest tenures in Law & Order history,
portraying Detective Green for nine years and nearly 200 episodes. The reason he left:
Broadway was calling him home, as he told Entertainment Weekly -
"I need to get back on stage before I get too scared to do it again."
In 2010, Martin starred in a production of The Merchant of Venice.
One of the shortest-lived detective pairings on Law & Order was also the very earliest:
Prolific character actor George Dzundza portrayed Senior Detective Max
Greevey opposite Chris Noth's Mike Logan. The duo solved crimes for just one season,
because Dzundza left Law & Order after the show's first season.
Dzundza decided to walk away because the show evolved away
from the premise it had when he was cast, telling Pop Entertainment -
"As the season went on, I saw that the stories were becoming more Dragnet-like.
I said no, this is not for me. This is not what I signed on to do."
Adding to his creative differences with Law & Order writers, Dzundza didn't like doing the
show on a personal level. He lived in Los Angeles and had to commute to the show's New York shoots,
a grind of which he quickly tired. The one performer more closely associated
with the show than anyone else was Jerry Orbach. For nearly 300 episodes, from 1991 to 2004,
he played senior Detective Lennie Briscoe, a grizzled veteran of the NYPD who'd make
brilliant crime-solving deductions as often as he had a sarcastic quip about a victim or suspect.
"From the blood splatter he hit the bricks right about here
then some good samaritan shoved him under the cab."
"A clean New York is a happy New York."
Orbach was a well-known character actor by the time he joined the Law & Order franchise,
often cast as New Yorkers in films, perhaps most famously in Dirty Dancing.He
was also a Broadway legend, starring in major productions in the '60s and '70s,
including Promises, Promises, which won him a Tony Award.
Orbach was such a towering figure, as an actor in general and in the Law & Order
world in particular, that his character got a spinoff. Lennie Briscoe was a main
character on Law & Order: Trial by Jury, which debuted on NBC in 2005.
After filming two episodes, Orbach died of prostate cancer at the age of 69.
In its early years, Law & Order boasted a stellar roster of recognizable and more-than-capable
character actors which made compelling crime and legal television. Among the stars of the show in
its first three seasons were Richard Brooks, who portrayed Assistant District Attorney Paul
Robinette, and Dann Florek, as Captain Donald Kragen of the NYPD. There was only one major
issue with this seven-member cast: Every single actor in it was a guy, which didn't reflect the
reality of the demographic makeup of the New York police department or legal system
the show purported to accurately depict. According to the Orlando Sentinel,
producers got rid of Brooks and Florek in order to bring in Law & Order's first female cast members:
Jill Hennessy as A.D.A. Claire Kincaid, and S. Epatha Merkerson as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren.
"I'm proud of my time here
and I'm honored and grateful to have worked with the finest unit of detectives I've ever known.”
Law & Order didn't completely eliminate them, however.
Brooks reprised his role a few times over the show's run, while Florek brought Captain Kragen
to the franchise's first spinoff, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
For an actor, whose passion and job is inhabiting different individuals and telling their story,
working on Law & Order can get uninteresting after a while.
That's seemingly what happened to Jill Hennessy, who portrayed Assistant District
Attorney Claire Kincaid on the series from 1993 to 1996. As she told The Morning Call -
"On the original Law & Order, it's sort of imperative that you remain emotionless
and keep your feelings about the subject matter hidden. As an attorney on that show,
you can't really vocalize those."
The actor got so worried that she'd be too closely associated with cold and taciturn lawyer-types,
that she left the series, adding -
"It's so easy to become typecast. If they see you in one light, people presume that's
all you can do. I was getting that from day one, with casting directors basically thinking, 'She
can't do comedy. She can't do emotional work.'" In 2001, Elizabeth Rohm became the fifth actor
to portray an assistant district attorney on Law & Order. Her character, Serena Southerlyn,
was a tough attorney and often butted heads with colleague Jack McCoy over procedural techniques,
frequently blaming criminals' actions on society's ills. After three seasons in the role,
Rohm was ready to move on. In June 2004, Law & Order producer Dick Wolf said that she would
leave the series after a handful of episodes in the show's upcoming fifteenth season.
In the episode "Ain't No Love," District Attorney Arthur Branch fires Southerlyn,
officially because he finds her to be dangerously biased toward defendants
and too emotionally-driven to make good legal decisions. Not buying it, Southerlyn asks -
"Is this because I'm a lesbian?"
This marked the first time the character's sexuality was ever declared or even mentioned,
and this abrupt and revelatory ending was something Rohm helped conceive, telling Huffpost -
"When I was leaving, Dick Wolf said,
'Do you want a splashy ending or a typical Law & Order ending?'"
Paul Sorvino joined Law & Order in its second season, replacing George Dzundza.
Sorvino's character, Phil Cerreta, headed up the investigation over the death of
Dzundza's Detective Max Greevey, only to get partnered up with the deceased's colleague,
Detective Mike Logan. Sorvino, a hard-working character actor, often played tough guys,
dad types, and men of authority, a streak he continued with Detective Cerreta,
a guy with a military background and father of five children.
Sorvino didn't last much longer than his predecessor, walking away from Law & Order
after about 30 episodes, and in the middle of the show's third season. Writers dismissed
Sargeant Cerreta by having him shot in the line of duty, then reassigned to a desk job.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Sorvino asked to be let go, so that he could have more time to
devote to a career as a singer. He ultimately released just one album, Paul Sorvino Sings,
a collection of Italian standards, old ragtime songs, and show tunes.
Angie Harmon joined the cast of Law & Order during its 1998-99 season.
Replacing Carey Lowell's character, Assistant District Attorney Jamie Ross, Harmon played
politically and socially conservative assistant district attorney Abbie Carmichael.
In April 2001, Harmon announced her intention to leave Law & Order after three years, agreeing to
film a few extra episodes to see the show through a potential Screen Actors Guild strike and to give
producer Dick Wolf enough time to find a new actor to play a new assistant D.A. Wolf told Variety -
"If an actor wants to leave the series for personal reasons,
and gives ample notice so that it doesn't affect production, I have never stood in anyone's way."
Insiders told Variety that Harmon was eager to spend more time on a
movie career. She landed supporting roles in moderate hits before returning to TV,
most famously with the hit crime procedural Rizzoli and Isles.
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