Paul Avery, the actor best known for playing bartender Hughie in the US soap opera All My Children, died with his wife Sheila Avery in a fire at their home. He was 81.
The couple’s daughter, Kyle Avery, confirmed the tragedy. “I’m devastated to share that our parents, Paul and Sheila Garry Avery, passed away early this morning,” she said in a Facebook post.
“We loved them so much, and they loved us so much, and nobody ever had to wonder if that was so. We’re grateful to the Blairstown Fire Department for their efforts. Service plans to follow.”
The couple were found unconscious by emergency responders who had been called to their home on Mohican Road in Blairstown, New Jersey, shortly after 12.38am on Tuesday.
They were pulled from the burning property by firefighters and given CPR but died from their injuries shortly afterwards, local newspaper Ridge View Echo, which Avery co-founded, reported.
Authorities said the cause of the fire was still under investigation.
The fire was declared under control at 1.03am, according to Ridge View Echo, with medevac placed on standby at around the same time.
Avery played Hughie, the bartender at Foxy’s, in All My Children for 12 years. He also appeared in Superman, playing a television cameraman, as well as in Three’s Company, Soap, and Tales from the Darkside. Across his 20-year acting career, Avery appeared in more than 300 commercials as well, according to his obituary.
He also worked as a journalist and editor in New Jersey, writing film reviews for the New Jersey Herald for seven years before working as a beat reporter for the Gazette in Hackettstown, covering five towns.
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He went on to become managing editor of the Blairstown Press and editor of Warren County Magazine before serving as founding executive editor of the Ridge View Echo.
Avery was also active in public life in Blairstown, serving on the township committee from 2012 until 2018, when he stepped down to become Sheila’s full-time carer after she suffered a stroke.
He was a member of the Blairstown Rotary and the American Legion and served in the Vietnam war as a helicopter crew chief in the US National Guard.
A licensed pilot, he regularly flew gliders from Blairstown’s airport. In an earlier interview with Ridge View Echo, Avery said of small-town life: “The great thing about living in a small town is that you can actively participate in it.”
Paul and Sheila Avery are survived by their daughters, Parker and Kyle, and their son, Paul.
