Larger than life and straight out of central casting, Michael Lipack ran the Daily News’ photo desk like everything was riding on just the right picture.
Because it was.
With a cigarette dangling from his lips, and suspenders stretching on both sides of his pot belly, Lipack could easily pass for J. Jonah Jameson in a Spider Man movie.
“He called everybody ‘kid,’” said Susan Watts, a former News photographer. “But you felt like you were the only one he called kid and it made you feel special.”
Lipack, 72, who died Wednesday, April 2, from sepsis after a series of health problems, worked for nearly 40 years at The News, rising through the ranks to be head of the photo department at “New York’s Picture Newspaper.”
