Posted on 08/12/2005 5:32:40 AM PDT by linkinpunk
Today: August 12, 2005 at 5:27:12 PDT
Nurse Recalls Famous Times Square Kiss
By PAT MILTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK (AP) -
A kiss is just a kiss - but not this kiss.
The photograph of the exuberant kiss by a sailor on the lips of a surprised nurse in Times Square remains, 60 years later, an iconic image of the day World War II ended.
"It was a very long kiss," Edith Cullen Shain, who says she is the nurse in the photo, recalled Thursday. "It was like a dance step, the way he laid me over in his arms."
Shain said she closed her eyes and never looked at the sailor.
"I just got lost in the moment," said Shain, now an 87-year-old great-grandmother from Santa Monica, Calif.
To Shain's delight, a life-size color sculpture by J. Seward Johnson based on the photograph was unveiled Thursday in bustling Times Square. It will be displayed through Monday.
Shain recalled the pandemonium on Aug. 14, 1945, the day of victory for the Allied forces over Japan, when people grabbed anyone and hugged and kissed each other.
"I let him kiss me because he had been in war and he fought for me," Shain said of the sailor. "I only wish now I had had a conversation with him or asked his name."
Unbeknownst to Shain, the smooch was snapped by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. It was featured in the magazine the following week.
Shain, then 27, said she recognized herself when she saw the photograph but didn't tell anyone because she was "too embarrassed."
Soon after the photo ran, she moved to California, married twice and had three children. She gave up nursing and taught kindergarten for 30 years.
In 1979, she told Eisenstaedt in a letter that she was the nurse in his photo. She said Eisenstaedt, who died in 1995, flew out to California to interview her and confirmed that she was indeed the nurse.
But the sailor's identity remains a mystery.
More than 20 men have come forward through the years claiming to be the kisser. One went so far as to have digital images of his face taken to create a 3-D model, which was then aged and transferred to the face on a copy of the kiss photograph - and he claimed it was a match.
But Shain, who said she was kissed by only one sailor that day, thinks he will never be identified.
"There were so many people kissing," she said, "I think they all believe they are right."
This story adds another smile to my day...
That photo is timeless. I love it!
:o)
thanks for that article!
Call me cynical but I'm surprised the AP didn't try and get to comment on the Iraq war at the end...
I have a large print of the photo in my bedroom. It really makes me happy to look at it everyday and remember a more "romantic" time in our history.
What paper would run that picture today? It's too politically incorrect: it's heteronormative, portrays warmongers in a positive light, serves as a display of patriarchal male dominance, and perpetuates the holocaust against Americans of Color by not showing any. ;)
Times have changed, but people haven't.
Yeah, but you have to admit the Times Square photo was a very passionate embrace. That's what I love about it. The shear joy that the war was over and this sailor couldn't help himself!
Or worse...discover he was kissing a she-male!
"Ask Jeeves:"
What the heck is "heteronormative." I'm not picking a fight. I want to increase my vocabulary, and I don't have an unabridged dictionary in my house.
Thank you.
Thank you for the wonderful article and photo. It made my day.
lol....... OMG....
".....he would either be sued or put in jail."
Not to mention the "sex offender" label he would carry to his grave.
It's a new concept gay activists have come up with - something else for them to take offense over. It means "reinforcing the idea that hetrosexuality is normal and homosexuality is abnormal".
A buzzword much on vogue among the whacky lefties at US universities, heteronormative implies that the heterosexual lifestyle is normal, whereas homosexuality (and all other sexualities) are not normal.
What a great photo! Mind if I steal it?
It's a real monkeyhumper of a word, ain't it?
Leni
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