Law & Order
Prescription for Death
Episode 1.1 - Sept. 13, 1990
Lee Tergesen utters just about the first line in the first episode of one of
TV's greatest franchises.
Episode 1 of "Law & Order" opens by panning across
an emergency room. The camera pauses on pony-tailed, hand-cuffed Lee
Tergesen. He hollers: "I'm not the guy you should have brought
in here!" He looks like he's been in a fight, and he's being
restrained by policemen and tended to by a doctor.
Lee can be seen in the background as the scene unfolds. Doctors
and nurses frantically tend to a young woman who is having a
seizure. She dies, even though her illness was not believed to have
been that serious, setting up the homicide investigation. Her
distraught father is played by John Spencer -- then of "L.A.
Law" and now of "West Wing."
Lee's part, as a character named Clemens, is over before the
opening credits roll.
"Law & Order" was his one and only TV appearance before leaving
New York for Los Angeles, where he almost immediately broke through
with "Point Break."
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