Helmut Huber, Susan Lucci's husband and manager, dies at 84

Helmut Huber, the husband and manager of "All My Children" icon Susan Lucci, died Monday in Garden City, where the couple lived for a half-century. He was 84.

"Helmut's passing is a tremendous loss for all who knew and loved him," the couple's representative said in a statement. "He was an extraordinary husband, father, grandfather, and friend. The family kindly asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult time."

Huber and Lucci, 75, who was raised in Elmont and Garden City, had married in September 1969, and as recently as this Valentine's Day posed together happily in an Instagram photo from the restaurant Daniel in New York. In January, Lucci posted a "[s]elfie with my handsome husband." 

Helmut Valentin Huber was born Oct. 10, 1937, in Innsbruck, Austria. Entering the hospitality field, he apprenticed at the Hotel Maria Theresia in Vienna and went on to graduate from L'Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, Switzerland, the family said. At 21 he immigrated to Canada, and two years later moved to New York City. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1994.

A member of both the Chef de Cuisine Association and Chaines des Rotisseurs, and appearing in that capacity as himself on the ABC game show "To Tell the Truth," Huber in the early 1960s became executive chef at the historic Garden City Hotel. There, in 1965, he met the young Lucci, a waitperson during her summer before starting college.

In her 2011 memoir, Lucci recalled the "tall, handsome Austrian" chef scolding her for wearing a too-short skirt and incorrectly holding a tray. After Lucci went on to Marymount College in Tarrytown and became engaged to a young man from Colorado, she and Huber met again at her engagement party at the same hotel in 1967. Huber, having a business dinner there, accepted an invitation from Lucci's mother to join them afterward.

"I saw Helmut in a different light," Lucci wrote in her memoir. "I suddenly thought he was very attractive. I also thought there was a problem because I shouldn't be feeling that way about another man." Later that evening, "Helmut leaned over to my mother and whispered into her ear, 'You know, this thing between Susan and this boy is never going to last.' " Her mother, Lucci wrote, told him she hoped he were right.

The engagement did eventually end, and she and Huber, by then married and divorced, were wed after dating for three weeks.

Huber later became CEO of Lucci's companies, Pine Valley Productions and SL Enterprises. He was a member of the Garden City Golf Club and the Westhampton Country Club.

In addition to Lucci, Huber is survived by the couple's two children, son Andreas Martin and daughter Liza Victoria; a son and a daughter from his previous marriage; a brother; and eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

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In lieu of flowers, the family asked that contributions be made to the American Stroke Association in support of stroke awareness and research.