Carl Muscarello gained national celebrity as the “kissing sailor” whose photo appeared on the cover of Life magazine planting a smooch on a nurse in New York’s Times Square as World War II ended in 1945.
Through much of his life, the U.S. Navy veteran, retired New York police detective, corporate fraud detective and former Plantation resident, leveraged that fame into good works, raising money and supporting charities including “Honor Flights” for veterans who visit war memorials in Washington, D.C.
On Feb. 27, Muscarello, a longtime former Planation resident, died at the age of 97 at his daughter’s home in Atlanta, said his son, Sebastian “Tony” Muscarello.
“My Dad had a very, very rich, colorful and wonderful life for 97 years,” Tony Muscarello said. “The sailor picture is newsworthy but clearly does not define my father. Him being the kissing sailor in our mind was just a platform to do good work in the community.”
Over the years, other veterans would step forward to assert they were the one who appeared in the iconic picture taken on V-J Day on Aug. 14, 1945. But those claims rang hollow for the former Navy submarine tender who vividly remembered what he did and when.
“It is proven the nurse came forward many years ago,” Tony Muscarello said. “She acknowledged my dad as being the sailor.”
At 84, Carl gave this account to a group of Broward County schoolchildren, according to a 2010 Sun Sentinel story.
Posted to a base in New York, his crew supplied fuel and food to submarines and inspected them for leaks. On V-J Day, his captain told the sailors to take a 72-hour leave — the war was over.
“I was going to go home, but everyone was going to Manhattan,” Muscarello told the students. So he went to Times Square and someone bought him several beers. “I must have drank about 12 that night,” he added.
“I just started kissing all the women in sight,” he added. “Everyone was kissing everyone.”
He noticed a photographer following him, carrying a box camera. Muscarello said Alfred Eisenstaedt later told him he was waiting for him to kiss a woman in a white dress. The nurse, Edith Shain, died at 91 in 2010 in Los Angeles. Eisenstaedt identified Shain as the nurse in the picture in 1980.
But it was the personal losses caused by the war that left a much deeper impact on his father’s life, Tony Muscarello said. “My Dad was so emotional about the friends he lost during the war.”
Not a penny accepted
Born in Brooklyn in 1926,.Carl Muscarello enlisted in the Navy a couple of months before he turned 18, three years after the war broke out. After his discharge from the military, he joined the New York City Police Department as a patrol officer, rising to detective.
But his career came to an early end when he was injured by a knife-wielding assailant while on the job; he was forced to retire early because of a resulting disability.
Muscarello moved his family, including son Tony, daughter Marie, and his first wife Margaret, to Plantation in 1970. He took a job with American Express in Miami as a chief inspector for fraud prevention in Latin America and the Caribbean. Retiring 25 years ago, Muscarello continued doing detective-related work at a private company.
But it was somewhat of a misnomer to say Carl Muscarello had actually retired.
He continued his charitable and volunteer work, devoting considerable time supporting the Honor Flight organization that arranges air travel for veterans to visit war memorial sites in Washington, D.C.
The veteran would never charge or keep any money given for his public appearances, autograph signings, or visits to schools or hospital patients. He donated any money he received to the Joe DiMaggio Memorial Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, his son said.
“My father over the years has signed by his count tens of thousands of photographs,” Tony Muscarello said. “I could see the quality of work he had done and the money he spent out of his own pocket, for the pictures he shipped out.”
Honor flights
Ryan Paton, a co-founder and director of operations of the Honor Flight South Florida group and a family friend, said Carl Muscarello took a flight in 2015 and continued to support the group thereafter. “He was almost like a grandfather to me over the last couple of years,” Paton said.
“My father had cancer a couple of years ago,” Paton recalled. “I spent a lot of time with him (at the hospital). On those cancer floors people are fighting for their lives. I called Carl and said, ‘Let’s get your Navy suit on and let me take you out there and you can really lift these people’s spirits up.’ And he said, ‘what time are we going?’”
Even though he’s gone, Carl Muscarello is still giving in the form of a personal motto that his son says he seeks to abide by every day: “The way to judge a person’s character is how they treat others who can do nothing for them.”
Carl Muscarello is survived by his wife Shelma, his daughter Marie, his son Sebastian “Tony,” and eight grandchildren. Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. March 21 at TM Ralph Funeral Home in Plantation, with a church service and burial starting at 10:30 a.m. March 22 at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church in Plantation.