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 in this 2007 file photo. 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.HOUSTON – 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. Glenn McDuffie was 86.
McDuffie died March 9 in a nursing home in Dallas, his daughter, Glenda Bell, told The Associated Press.
After World War II, McDuffie, who was born in Kannapolis, N.C., and moved to Houston in 1960, became a mail carrier and semi-professional baseball player.
But his life became more exciting about six years ago when Houston Police Department forensic artist Lois Gibson was able to identify him as the young man leaning over the woman in his arms to kiss her.
By taking about 100 pictures of McDuffie using a pillow to pose as he did in the picture taken Aug. 14, 1945, by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gibson said, she was able to match the muscles, ears and other features of the then-80-year-old McDuffie to the young sailor in the original image.