That Famous Picture of The Sailor Kissing Nurse On V-J DAY 1945 - UPDATE

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Glenn McDuffie holds a portrait of himself as a young man, left, and a copy of Alfred Eisenstaedt's iconic Life magazine shot of a sailor embracing a nurse in a white uniform, right, at his Houston home Tuesday, July 31, 2007.

(AP Photo/Pat Sullivan /
August 13, 2007)









                                           Kiss isn't just a kiss for Times Square sailor






By David Freedlander |
amNewYork Staff Writer
August 14, 2007


No way, no how, will Glenn McDuffie be lockin' lips Tuesday in Times Square.

McDuffie, 80, of Houston, was identified last week by a forensic artist as the man in the famous Life Magazine photo -- taken 62 years ago Tuesday -- of a soldier and a nurse smooching in Times Square
to celebrate victory over Japan in World War II.

McDuffie says he wants nothing to do with the annual "Kiss-In" celebration Tuesday or with Edith Shain, 87, who has long been believed to be the woman in the photo, until she submits to the battery of polygraph tests that he has undergone over the years to prove his identity.

"I know the woman I kissed," McDuffie said. "And she ain't it."



In fact, McDuffie said he had tried to reach out to Shain through the years, but that she was far less receptive than she may have been on Broadway that day.

"She's been a smart ass about it all the time so I hung up on her," he said.

But Shain, of Santa Monica, was identified by the photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, as the one in the photo.

Dozens of men through the years have made claims to have been her sudden suitor on Aug. 14, 1945,
but now the evidence seems to point McDuffie.

"I passed five polygraph tests," McDuffie said. "She'd have to take at least three. And do it on TV.
She's been riding the train all these years, I just can't see it how everybody believes her."

Attempts to reach Shain for comment were unsuccessful.

McDuffie said he was in the city that day to see his girlfriend, Ardith Bloomfield, who lived in Brooklyn, when word came that the war was over.

"I went over there and kissed her and saw a man running at us," McDuffie recalled. "I thought it was
a jealous husband or boyfriend coming to poke me in the eyes. I looked up and saw he was taking the picture and I kissed her as long as it took for him to take it."

Before last week, most people thought the sailor in the photo to be Carl Muscarello, a retired New
York City police detective who appeared with Shain at the Kiss-In two years ago. Muscarello maintains that in fact it was him in the photo, no matter what polygraph tests or forensic experts claim.

"All my life I've worked in law enforcement, and several times I've come across people who have beaten
a lie detector test," he said.

The Times Square Alliance, which is expecting more than a hundred people Monday for the event, promises to remain neutral.

"I think a strong case can be made for Carl," said Tim Tompkins, president of the group. "But there were probably quite a few sailors kissing nurses in Times Square that day, and they all say the photo was them with complete conviction … We'll leave it to the kissing gods to sort out."

While McDuffie won't agree to participate in any of the festivities today, he did agree to come last week to 42nd Street and Broadway to be interviewed by Diane Sawyer, who became the recipient of one of
his famed smooches.

"She was a beautiful, nice, woman," he said. "Prettiest mouth in the world. I'm a big fan of hers."

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Edith Shain, foreground right, the nurse in the famous photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a sailor kissing
a nurse in New York's Times Square on V-J Day, tries to imitate the photo's embrace with Nick Mayo, foreground left, a member of the cast of the musical South Pacific as they pose with other South Pacific cast members at
the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York, Sunday Nov. 9, 2008.

Shain, 90, is in New York to serve as the grand marshal of the 2008 New York City Veterans Day parade.

(AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)

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                                 Nurse in Times Square war photo reunites with Navy






   

By RICHARD PYLE,
Associated Press Writer
Richard Pyle,
Associated Press Writer – 
Nov 10, 2008
NEW YORK –

A 90-year-old who says she's the woman being kissed by a sailor in Times Square in one of World War II's most famous photographs reunited in town with the Navy on Sunday — days before she is to serve as grand marshal of the city's Veterans Day parade.

Edith Shain of Los Angeles, donning a white nurse's uniform like the one she wore back in 1945, went
to see the musical revival of "South Pacific" and posed for pictures, being hoisted off her feet on stage by five of the actors in their Navy whites.

On Tuesday, she'll ride in the parade at the head of a contingent of World War II veterans.

The "South Pacific" event was a touching reminder of history, but very different from Aug. 15, 1945,
the day Shain recalls that she joined thousands of people whooping it up after Japan surrendered.
Right there on Broadway and 45th Street, a sailor suddenly grabbed and kissed her — and the moment was caught by Alfred Eisenstaedt, a Life magazine photographer.

His picture from V-J Day became one of the 20th century's most iconic images. But Eisenstaedt didn't get the names of either party, and efforts years later by Life to identify them produced a number of claimants, says Bobbi Baker Burrows, a Life editor with deep knowledge of the subject.

About 1980, Shain recalls, she wrote a letter to Life, identifying herself as the woman in the nurse's uniform. Eisenstaedt wrote back and later visited her in California and gave her a copy of the photo.
But Eisenstaedt, who died in 1995, was never sure that Shain was the woman in the photo, Burrows said.

Because of renewed interest in the subject, she recalled, "Life decided to run an article saying, `If
you are the sailor or the nurse in the picture, please step forward.'"

"We received claims from a few nurses and dozens of sailors, but we could never prove that any of them were the actual people, and Eisenstaedt himself just said he didn't know," she said.

Even the fact that Shain stands only 4 feet 9 isn't helpful in analyzing the photo, in which the sailor
has her in what looks more like a death grip than an embrace, with both of their faces obscured.

By her own account, Shain said she could not identify the bussing boy in blue.

"I went from Doctors Hospital to Times Square that day because the war was over, and where else
does a New Yorker go?" she said. "And this guy grabbed me and we kissed, and then I turned one way and he turned the other. There was no way to know who he was, but I didn't mind because he was someone who had fought for me."

At least three veterans still lay claim to being the kissing sailor, and at least one other woman has claimed to be the nurse. But Shain, who left nursing to become a kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles for 30 years, appears to hold the edge — by virtue of persistence, an effervescent charm and unabashed patriotism.

"As for the picture," she says, "it says so many things — hope, love, peace and tomorrow. The end
of the war was a wonderful experience, and that photo represents all those feelings."