Jack Zink, longtime drama critic of the Sun-Sentinel, has passed away at the age of 61.

I first met Jack many years ago when I took over the Coral Springs Center for the Arts. We had lunch together in downtown Ft. Lauderdale and I enjoyed his candid personality and great knowledge of the theater business.

He was quite a man, charming, witty, and extremely smart. He could smell B.S. a mile away, and so, unlike many arts executives trying to strong arm Jack into running story on them, I shied away from that approach. Jack would have just smiled and tossed the press release anyways.

If the story was good, he would run it. If it was fluff, forget about it. I loved that about Jack. It gave him enormous credibility in my eyes. When he did feature our theater in his well-written Showtime column, I felt good knowing he approved of the way we ran our operation and deemed it newsworthy. If Jack wrote about ya, you knew you were doing a good job.

All of us in the South Florida area who love the theater will miss him greatly. He's probably reviewing a show right now in Heaven as I write this...Jack never stopped working.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/obituaries/sfl-flozink0819sbaug19,0,137151.story