Edith Shain, who became something of a celebrity decades after World War II, asserting that she was the nurse kissed by a sailor in Life magazine’s memorable photograph of V-J Day in Times Square, died Sunday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 91.

Her death was announced by her family.

On the 60th anniversary of Japan’s surrender, in 2005, the Times Square Alliance welcomed Mrs. Shain to its commemoration of that frenzied August day in 1945, when strangers were hugging and kissing everywhere in the throngs that came to Times Square to celebrate the war’s end.

Wearing sneakers and a nurse’s uniform, Mrs. Shain re-enacted the moment captured by Life’s renowned photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. Many men have claimed to be the sailor who bestowed the kiss.