Paul Avery, the 84-year-old actor who played bartender Hughie on All My Children and appeared in the 1978 Superman film, died alongside his wife Sheila in an early-morning house fire at their home in Blairstown, New Jersey. Sheila Garry Avery was 77.
New Jersey State Police troopers arrived at the couple's home shortly after 12:30 a.m. Tuesday to find the house fully engulfed in flames, NBC News reported. Both Paul and Sheila were found unresponsive and later succumbed to their injuries. The fire remains under investigation.
The cause of the blaze has not been determined, but it has been ruled non-suspicious, the New York Post reported. Both died of smoke inhalation after firefighters pulled them from the home in critical condition and performed CPR on the scene.
Their daughter Kyle Avery posted a statement to social media confirming the deaths:
"I'm devastated to share that our parents, Paul and Sheila Garry Avery, passed away early this morning. We loved them so much, and they loved us so much, and nobody ever had to wonder if that was so."
Another daughter, Parker Sanchez, offered her own tribute: "If you could order parents in a catalog, they would be the ones."
Paul Avery's screen credits were the kind most Americans would recognize without knowing his name. He tended bar as Hughie on the long-running ABC soap opera All My Children. He appeared in the Christopher Reeve Superman in 1978. He turned up on Three's Company and Tales From the Darkside.
But the résumé only begins to describe the man. Avery was a Vietnam veteran and helicopter pilot. He served as a Blairstown committeeman and was a long-time member of the local Rotary Club. He founded and edited a local newspaper, the Ridge View Echo. On Sunday mornings, he flew gliders from Blairstown Airport.
That range, combat veteran, elected official, journalist, community volunteer, actor, pilot, is the kind of biography that used to be more common in American life, before specialization and celebrity culture narrowed the definition of a meaningful career. Avery lived in his small New Jersey town and did the work that holds a community together. As we previously reported, his death and Sheila's have left Blairstown mourning two of its most visible citizens.
Sheila Garry Avery was no footnote to her husband's story. She was a registered nurse who spent 25 years doing sexual assault counseling and training for abused women. Locally, she was known as an accomplished artist.
In 2018, Sheila suffered a stroke that required full-time caregiving. Paul took on that role himself. For the last several years of their lives, the couple lived quietly in the Blairstown home where they died, Paul tending to Sheila, still active in the community when he could be, still flying gliders when Sunday mornings allowed.
Their daughters described them as joyful, community-minded people who touched countless lives through humor, hospitality, and decades of service. Kyle Avery called the loss "the biggest loss of our lives," adding: "It's devastation, there's no other word."
New Jersey State Police stated that the fire remains under investigation. No cause has been publicly identified. The non-suspicious ruling offers some measure of clarity, this does not appear to be arson or foul play, but the family and community are left without a full explanation of how the blaze started or why two people could not escape.
The timeline itself raises questions. Troopers arrived shortly after 12:30 a.m. to a house already fully engulfed. How long the fire had been burning before emergency services were alerted is not clear from available official statements. Whether any other individuals were present in or near the home has not been addressed publicly.
The entertainment world has seen a string of notable losses in recent months. William Smithers, the veteran Dallas villain, died at 98, and other figures from American sports and culture have passed in sudden circumstances, including former IndyCar driver Rick Treadway, killed in a motorcycle crash at 56.
Paul Avery's Hollywood credits will lead most obituaries. That is how fame works. But the man who served in Vietnam, flew helicopters, won a seat on the town committee, started a local newspaper, joined the Rotary, and then spent his final years caring for his ailing wife, that man mattered more to Blairstown than any soap opera role ever could.
Sheila's quarter-century of work with sexual assault victims and abused women speaks for itself. These were people who gave back, year after year, in ways that never made national news until a fire took them both.
The investigation will run its course. The cause may eventually be determined. But what is already clear is that Blairstown lost two people who embodied the kind of local citizenship, service, sacrifice, generosity, presence, that no government program can manufacture and no algorithm can replace.
A country that still produces Paul and Sheila Averys has something worth preserving. The tragedy is that it sometimes takes a house fire to remind us.