USA: NURSE WHO FAMOUSLY APPEARED IN THE ICONOIC "VJ DAY" PHOTOGRAPH UNVEILS STATUE OF THE KISS

Record ID: 852276

  • Title: USA: NURSE WHO FAMOUSLY APPEARED IN THE ICONOIC "VJ DAY" PHOTOGRAPH UNVEILS STATUE OF THE KISS
  • Date: 25th August 2005
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (AUGUST 11, 2005) (REUTERS) SCU AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH OF EDITH SHAIN (2.08)
  • Embargoed: 9th September 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Arts,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA9NETVMDKJHBQHN0XI7R0VGAB4
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  • Story Text: The nurse who famously appeared in the iconic "VJ Day" photo unveils a statue of the kiss.
    The woman in an iconic photograph of an American sailor rapturously kissing a nurse during a V-J Day parade unveiled a sculpture of the clinch on Thursday (August 11, 2005), saying she still doesn't know who kissed her 60 years ago.
    Taken in Times Square and entitled "V-J Day," the picture by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstadt came to symbolize the euphoria as crowds celebrated the Allied victory in Japan at the end of World War II on Aug.
    14, 1945.
    Standing next to the sculpture that will be in a Times Square traffic island until Aug. 14, former nurse Edith Shain, who just turned 87, talked to reporters about the eventful V-J Day.
    "You know, what happened, and that they were exuberant - and you know, at a time like that, you kiss everybody , so I didn't think anything of it," she said.
    When asked by a reporter whether she was shocked by the sudden kiss, Shain, replied, "No, I wasn't shocked, everybody was being kissed, and you know - why not? It was a great day - the end of the war. "
    The aluminium sculpture, which is slightly larger-than-life and painted in life-like colours, was made by artist J. Seward Johnson, who gave it the title "Unconditional Surrender." After Aug. 14 it will find a home in a gallery.
    Shain was a 27-year-old nurse at the time and she later became a school teacher in California where she married and had three children.
    Various men have claimed to be the man in the photo.
    One such man, George Mendonsa, a retired commercial fisherman from Rhode Island, has been considered to be particularly tenacious. He reportedly unsuccessfully sued Life magazine some years ago in an attempt to prove himself as the sailor in the photograph.
    But Shain said it is impossible to know who it was for sure.
    "I don't know his story. He's had a story. He was out there a long time ago - George Mendonsa or something. Yeah, but he's - what has he done? He's had a scientific appraisal and he says that he - I don't know. Good luck to him," she said about Mendonsa.
    As the media gathered around Shain and the sculpture, Times Square visitors stopped to have a good look.
    "She was a very beautiful girl. I thought it was her boyfriend all these years that I've been watching television and when I asked her and she said no, that's not my boyfriend, I was like - like you said to kiss anybody that you see, it's really something - something. But it's better than kissing the ground," said onlookers Sheran Boddie said "Well, I think it really epitomizes the feeling that one gets when one comes home from being away for so long and under such conditions. I think its just pure and its uninhibited. Its just wonderful. It brings peace of mind too when you see it," said another onlooker Olive Joseph.
    Shain, who will host a public "kiss-in" on the site of the famous embrace on Sunday, said the original kiss lasted six or seven seconds but did not rate it as one of the best in her life.
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