Hallmark Star Marc Blucas Loses Mother-In-Law, Model Dayle Haddon, In Tragic Accident At His Home

Hallmark star Marc Blucas has suffered an unthinkable loss. On December 27, 2024, police were summoned to his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where his mother-in-law, actor and model Dayle Haddon, was found dead in a cottage house on the property. She was 76. The cause is suspected to be carbon monoxide poisoning. Blucas's father, Walter Blucas, was also unconscious on the cottage's first floor and was hospitalized. Unidentified family members in the main house were unaffected; police reported that the toxic gas came from a faulty exhaust system on the gas heater in the smaller home.

The Canadian-born Haddon originally had her eye on a ballet career, thinking of modeling as a way to finance her dance lessons. But as she booked more and more major gigs, she hung up her ballet slippers for a life in front of the camera. She was the only model to have four cosmetic company contracts; she was best known for her long association with L'Oreal and its famous "Because You're Worth It" campaign. Haddon paused her career to raise her daughter, Ryan Haddon, but after the death of her husband, she went back to work, branding herself as a spokesperson for midlife women. She was closely associated with the Talbots clothing line, which helped promote her bestselling 2013 book "The 5 Principles of Ageless Living."

A passionate humanitarian activist, Haddon traveled widely as an ambassador to UNICEF; the Canadian magazine Zoomer compared her to fellow UNICEF spokesperson Audrey Hepburn. She was also the founder of WomenOne, an organization dedicated to the education of women and girls in underserved areas of the world.

Dayle Haddon's daughter Ryan Haddon is the wife of Marc Blucas, star of such Hallmark Christmas movies as "Good Morning Christmas!" and "Miss Christmas." In 2022, he joined Candace Cameron Bure, who left The Hallmark Channel, for the film "A Christmas...Present" on her new channel, Great American Family. He's also the star of the hit Netflix series "My Life With the Walter Boys," and many still remember him from his stint as Riley Finn on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Blucas is a devoted husband to Ryan and a dad to their two daughters, and he spends his time off-camera working as a licensed contractor in their rural area. 

In 2011, the family moved to Pennsylvania, where he bought a 310-year-old farmhouse and lovingly restored it to a picture-perfect home. "I feel fortunate [I]'ve found another 'occupation' that has the sense of creativity and community I love," he once wrote on Instagram. "[W]e have created something magical along the way, and hopefully showed our kids the value of hard work, preserving our historic buildings, and the gratification that comes with learning new things and doing them yourself." Sadly, the cottage on the farmhouse property was where Dayle Haddon died and Blucas's father was sickened.

Blucas has not commented on his mother-in-law's death, but Ryan paid a touching tribute to her "kind and thoughtful" mother online which indicates she doesn't blame her husband for the tragedy. "I always trust the timing of things," she wrote. "There are no accidents and certainly how we enter and exit this world is mystical and unknowable. She was a high-hearted spiritual being that put value on her soul's evolution, so I know her journey here in this dimension must have been complete."