Man Known for Iconic WWII Kissing Sailor Photograph Dies at 86

Story by the Associated Press; curated by Oliver Darcy.

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HOUSTON (AP) — A man who became known for claiming he was the sailor kissing a woman in Times Square in a famous World War II-era photo taken by a Life magazine photographer has died.

Man known as the kissing sailor in Alfred Eisenstaedt photo has died | https://t.co/UdZMa3V28F pic.twitter.com/S42dhx1XdA

— LIFE (@LIFE) March 14, 2014

Houston Police Department forensic artist Lois Gibson, who says she identified Glenn McDuffie as the man in the picture, says Friday that he died March 9. McDuffie was 86.

Gibson says she took about 100 pictures of McDuffie using a pillow to pose as he did in the picture taken Aug. 14, 1945, by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.

In this July 31, 2007 file photo, 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, who McDuffie claims is him, embracing a nurse in a white uniform in New York's Times Square, at his Houston home. McDuffie, who became known for claiming he was the sailor kissing a woman in Times Square in a famous World War II-era photo taken by a Life magazine photographer has died. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)

By overlaying those pictures over the original, Gibson says, she was able to match the muscles, ears and other features of the then-80-year-old McDuffie to the younger man leaning over the woman in his arm to kiss her.

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