Mystery Woman in Iconic Elvis Presley Photograph Taken by Alfred Wertheimer Identified

NEW YORK (REUTERS).- A U.S. magazine has identified the mystery woman seen kissing singer Elvis Presley in a backstage theater stairwell in an iconic 1956 photograph. Barbara Gray, now 75 and living in Charleston, S.C., told Vanity Fair magazine that she didn’t reveal her identity for the money or fame. “I just wanted to get my name on the damn picture,” she said. Gray admitted that she become fed up with being known only as the “unknown woman in the wings” with a young Elvis in a stairwell at the Mosque Theater in Richmond, Virginia. Photographer Alfred Wertheimer said he never asked for the woman’s name when he took the photograph and she never told it to him. After newspaper coverage of Wertheimer’s photography exhibit at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. in early 2010 showed him standing in front of the photograph called “The Kiss,” Gray tracked Wertheimer on Facebook and sent him a message. “I’m the girl. ‘The Kiss.’ Have a good story for you,” she said.

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