Susan Lucci is an Emmy Award-winning actress known for playing Erica Kane in All My Children and Genevieve Delatour in Devious Maids, among several other roles to her credit. Aside from her successful career in Hollywood, the 76-year-old has also enjoyed a blissful union with her husband, Helmut Huber.
Susan was married to Helmut for over five decades until his death at their New York home on March 28, 2022. Susan’s spokesperson announced the death of her husband in an interview with Closer. “Helmut’s passing is a tremendous loss for all who knew and loved him. He was an extraordinary husband, father, grandfather, and friend,” the rep said. “The family kindly asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult time.”
Susan Lucci’s first meeting with her late husband, Helmut Huber
The couple had their first meeting in the summer of 1965 while she was working as a waitress at the Garden City Hotel on Long Island, New York after her freshman year. Helmut told People in a June 1999 interview that he was smitten by her immediately after he saw her. “The first time I saw Susie, it hit me,” he told the outlet. “Still today, she walks in a room, and I just light up.”
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However, due to the wide age gap between them, Susan did not take Helmut as a suitor thus she got engaged to another man in 1968. For the engagement party, Susan’s parents invited Helmut to join in the celebration. Susan told Yahoo! Lifestyle in January 2019 that she started developing feelings for him at her party. “I was thinking at the time that he was much more attractive than I even knew, and I shouldn’t be feeling like that. Something is wrong with this picture,” she said. “But I didn’t know what to do with it.”
The 76-year-old further revealed to People that Helmut had an inkling about the engagement not lasting. “Helmut leaned over to my mother and said, ‘This thing between Susie and this boy is never going to last,'” Susan told the outlet. “I heard about that much later. And my mother agreed with him, but she didn’t tell me that.” As it turns out, he was right.
Susan Lucci tied the knot with Helmut Huber
Shortly after her engagement party, she broke up with her fiancé and got together with Helmut. Susan revealed in an interview with Yahoo! Lifestyle about the moment she knew Helmut was the man of her dreams. “One night we were in the sun porch of my parent’s home,” she said. “Helmut realized that I was cold. He took his socks off and put his socks on me. This is somebody spectacular.”
The pair dated for three months and tied the knot on September 13, 1969, which was close to the time when she landed her role to play Erica in the TV soap opera, All My Children. The couple decided to start their family and they welcomed their first child, a daughter, Liza in February 1975. Two years after, they expanded their family by birthing their son, Andreas in April 1977.
Due to Susan’s fledgling career, Helmut left his job as a hotel and restaurant executive in 1982 to help his wife by becoming her manager. Susan praised Helmut’s dedication to her in an interview with Yahoo! Lifestyle, “I feel so lucky that Helmut is so secure, and I always look to him because he’s very smart. I’m not even gonna say supportive; it’s so beyond that. It’s involved, it’s hands-on, really there for me.”
Susan Lucci revealed that her husband, Helmut Huber once saved her life
In a 2015 exclusive interview with Closer, Susan revealed how she was rescued from death by her late husband during the early period of their union. “Very early on [in our marriage], we were skiing in Tignes Le Lac in France, and I fell off the lift,” she told the outlet. “We were only midway up the mountain, and I slipped and was sliding, and it was above the trees, so there was nothing to grab onto.”
The 76-year-old further disclosed that she was saved from danger because her husband was a skilled skier. “He schussed down below me and managed to stop my fall. It was a good sign that he saved me,” Sandra further explained. “Otherwise, I would have fallen thousands of feet off a cliff! I got a good one!”