Doris Belack (February 26, 1926 – October 4, 2011) was an American character actress of stage, film and television.[1]
Early years
Born on February 26, 1926, Belack was the younger child of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Isaac and Bertha Belack; she had an older sister.[1]
Life and career
Belack began her acting career immediately after she graduated from high school when she began performing in a summer stock theater company.[1]
She was sometimes been misidentified as the first Bernice Fish, the wife of Abe Vigoda's character Fish on Barney Miller. She was actually only a one-episode replacement for actress Florence Stanley, who played the role. Before that, Belack was seen mainly in soap operas. She originated the role of Anna Wolek Craig for nearly a decade on One Life to Live. She also appeared in Another World (three different roles over several years), The Doctors (1980, as psychiatrist Dr. Claudia Howard), and The Edge of Night (1981, as Beth Bryson). Later in the 1980s, she had the recurring role of Pine Valley's mayor on All My Children.
Belack played the lead role in the short-lived television sitcom Baker's Dozen as Florence Baker, the no-nonsense captain of an undercover anti-crime unit of the NYPD. The show lasted a month on CBS. She guest starred on an episode of The Golden Girls in 1985 as Gloria, the sister of Bea Arthur's character Dorothy Zbornak. From 1990 to 2001, Belack played tough, sharp-tongued Judge Margaret Barry, a recurring role on Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She voiced Maureen McReary in Grand Theft Auto IV and provided the voices of Mrs. Dink and Mrs. Wingo in the Nickelodeon show Doug. Her last television appearance was on a 2003 episode of Sex and the City.[2]
Personal life and death
Her husband, producer Philip Rose, died on May 31, 2011, four months before her own death. They were married for 65 years and had no children.[3]
1234Vitello, Paul (October 9, 2011). "Doris Belack, Judge on TV's 'Law & Order', Dies at 85". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 11, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2011. Doris Belack, a veteran stage, television and screen actress best known for her roles as a no-nonsense judge on "Law & Order" and as the peeved soap opera producer in "Tootsie" died on Tuesday in New York. She was 85.
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