Susan Lucci fell for husband Helmut Huber during her engagement party to another man
Susan Lucci was just 18 when she first met Austria-born Helmut Huber, who was the executive chef at the Garden City Hotel in New York, where the college freshman was working as a waitress.
“I asked one of my friends, I said, ‘Who is that?’” Lucci tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “And she said, ‘He’s your boss, stupid.'”
However, Huber, who is nine years Lucci’s senior, had already taken note of her, saying that he had a “wow!” moment when Lucci first showed up. But beyond Huber being Lucci’s superior, their age difference also put them in different places in their lives, so much so that the then-aspiring actress didn’t even consider Huber romantically.
“In the meantime, she got engaged to another fella,” Huber says. “Can you imagine that?”
Fate then stepped in. Lucci’s parents had her engagement party at the same Long Island hotel and came across Huber in the hallway. Lucci’s mother invited him to join them at the celebratory dinner, which prompted a life-changing decision.
“I was thinking at the time that he was much more attractive than I even knew, and I shouldn’t be feeling like that,” Lucci says of the man who was sitting across from her, while her then-fiancé was by her side. “Something is wrong with this picture. But I didn’t know what to do with it.”
Huber, however, already knew that it was meant to be, as he turned to Lucci’s mom to say, “She needs a man, not a boy.”
From there, Lucci was certain that she had to end her engagement — although she wasn’t yet sure where her relationship with Huber would go. In just the first few instances that the couple spent any time together, Huber was already telling Lucci that he’d like to marry her. However, the All My Children actress needed more time.
“Sometimes I think there’s a reason why I played Erica Kane, why they cast me in that role,” Lucci jokes in reference to the soap opera-like drama surrounding her own romantic relationship at the time.
Luckily, her relationship with Huber would play out as though it were scripted and prove to last the test of time in the real world.
“One night we were in the sun porch of my parents’ home. Helmut realized that I was cold. He took his socks off and put his socks on me,” Lucci says through a smile. “This is somebody spectacular.”
It was only three months into their relationship, but when Huber said once again that he’d like to spend the rest of his life with Lucci, she agreed.
The two have now been married 49 years and have two kids. Still, they argue about how long or short their whirlwind romance was. Lucci admits that their three-month courtship wasn’t long at all, whereas Huber jokes that it took “forever” for her to accept his constant proposals. But they both recognize that they each found their person.
“I feel so lucky too that Helmut is so secure and I always look to him because he’s very smart,” Lucci says of her husband. “I’m not even gonna say supportive, it’s so beyond that. It’s involved, it’s hands-on, really there for me.”
“And to love somebody like that,” Huber adds, “that doesn’t happen that often. And if it does happen, it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
• How Fox News’ Dana Perino met her husband by chance on an airplane: ‘He’s cute, and he’s not wearing a wedding ring, and he has a British accent’
• ‘GMA Day’ co-host Sara Haines met her husband on OkCupid — and he had no idea she was famous
• TV chef Carla Hall says her mom was concerned about her being 42 and single. Then, online, she met her husband, Matthew Lyons.
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