To the world, Nina Craig was the model walking down a Florence street in American Girl in Italy, the famous photo snapped by photographer Ruth Orkin in 1951. It depicted the tall, elegant Craig strolling past a throng of appreciative Italian men and wound up being reproduced in magazines, books, calendars, postcards and posters.
But to many in Hamilton and Burlington, Craig was one half of a prominent couple who freely gave their time to a dozen cultural interests. This included Theatre Aquarius, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Opera Hamilton, the McMaster Children’s Hospital, the Hamilton Children’s Choir and Conservation Halton.
Craig — who died May 2 in Toronto at the age of 90 — spent two decades of her life in Burlington with husband Ross Craig, a Dofasco executive she met while working in New York City as an advertising copywriter in the early 1970s and who she married in 1978 (they lived for a time in Campbellville).
In 1992, the couple were recognized with the Lescarbot award, presented by the federal government to people who have contributed much to their arts community. The ceremony at the Burlington Cultural Centre heard how the couple were instrumental in helping raise $1 million for the Halton conservation foundation to rebuild an Indian village at Crawford Lake. Their next project was to raise $600,000 to build a bird sanctuary at Mountsberg Conservation Area.
“It’s been fun and exciting,” Mrs. Craig said after she and her husband received the award for their contribution to the community.
In 1996, Craig received a Cornerstone Award from the Chedoke-McMaster Hospital Foundation for starting a program called Kids Fun Club and in 2003 she was named to the Ralph Sherwood Honour Roll, named for a longtime director of Conservation Halton.
Born Ninalee Allen in Indianapolis, and raised in a town outside New York City, it was just by chance Craig wound up in an American Girl in Italy. She told The Spectator in 1992 that she had just graduated from college and went to Florence to study art for a year. She had met Orkin before and one day she bumped into her and was asked if she would be a model for the day. She said Orkin took photos of her walking along a river and then they came to the street with about 15 men on it, lined up near the corner.
“Then, at a certain moment, she turned around, snapped it, and then said stop, took one more, and then we went on. This is not a set-up picture.”
Orkin took other photos of her that day, including one in a MG roadster. The photo of her walking down the street first appeared in Cosmopolitan in 1952 tied to an article about young women travelling in Europe. Then it took off. Craig recalled getting the shock of her life after she returned to New York City. “I walked into Grand Central Station and a huge version of the picture was on the wall. Ruth had sold the picture to Kodak or something.”
In 1961, the photo appeared in the Life World Library hardcover book on Italy. It did not go over well with the aristocratic and conservative family from Venice she had married into, especially her mother-in-law. The marriage ended in 1973.
Some see the photo as an example of harassment, but Craig never did, though she admitted women had a very different reaction to it than men. She said she was not afraid when she walked by the men and found out after she met Ross Craig the man on the scooter later became one of his business partners.
“I was just holding my shawl, running the gauntlet is a good way to put it. I felt like I had a job to do. I was going and nothing was going to keep me from my determined destination.”
She remained friends with Orkin (who died in 1985), but told The Spec the secret of the photo’s popularity always eluded her.
