“All My Children” star Paul Avery and his wife Sheila tragically died in a devastating house fire early Tuesday morning.
According to WFMZ, the 81-year-old actor and his wife were inside their home in Blairstown, New Jersey, when the fire broke out.
Firefighters arrived at the home just before 1 a.m. Tuesday and pulled the couple from the house, which was engulfed in flames.
However, Paul and Sheila were in critical condition and died shortly after, according to the Ridgeview Echo.
At the time of his death, Paul was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Ridge View Echo.
“I’ve always wanted to call Paul the most interesting man in the world, because when you think about everything he accomplished in his life, he was: an actor, a skydiver, a Vietnam veteran who started a newspaper,” Paul’s friend and reporter Joe Fallon told WFMZ.
He added that Paul’s death “will leave a real void in this community.”
“Not just Blairstown, but the surrounding towns as well,” Fallon said. “We will really miss him and that will become more apparent as time goes on.”
The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
The couple’s daughter Kyle confirmed the news on Facebook on Tuesday.
“We are shocked to learn that our parents, Paul and Sheila Gary Avery, passed away early this morning,” she wrote.
“We loved them so much, and they loved us so much, and no one ever had to wonder if that was the case,” Kyle added.
As a teenager, Paul was a skydiver and later served as a helicopter crew leader during the Vietnam War. Even after his retirement, he continued to fly airplanes as a hobby.
Paul appeared on the soap opera “All My Children” for 12 years in the 1980s.
He played a bartender at the Foxes named Huey.
Paul also played a cameraman in 1978’s Superman and appeared in episodes of Soap and Three’s Company.
After retiring from acting, the late veteran dove into the world of journalism, first working for the New York Times and then becoming the founding editor-in-chief of the Ridge View Echo.
According to Soap Opera Digest, Paul became his wife’s full-time caregiver in 2018 after she suffered a stroke.
