Who Is Barbara Avery? The Real Story of James Avery’s Wife

To television fans, James Avery will always be Uncle Phil, the strong, warm, and wise head of the Banks family in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Behind that famous career stood his wife of twenty five years, Barbara Avery, a respected university educator who built a serious career of her own in student life and higher education.

Searches for barbara avery often treat her as only a famous man’s wife. That misses the real story. Barbara led student affairs at major colleges, helped generations of young people through university life, and after her husband’s death in 2013 she became one of the keepers of his legacy.

Quick Facts

An Educator First

Barbara Avery was born Barbara Waters in the United States in 1944. Some online profiles give a more exact birth date, but those details are not backed by strong public sources, so this article stays with the year that is consistently reported. What is much better documented than her birth date is her work, because universities record the careers of their senior leaders.

Barbara studied in California, with profiles linking her education to San Diego and to the University of California system. She chose a field that does not make headlines but changes lives every day: student affairs. Student affairs leaders run the parts of a university that shape life outside the classroom, from housing and student support to inclusion, discipline, and community.

Her first major role in the public record was at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where she served as dean of students, described in her husband’s biographies as dean of student life. Profiles say she spent about eleven years at Loyola Marymount. It was also the role she held during the years when her husband became a household name, which is why so many James Avery biographies introduce her through that job.

From Loyola Marymount, her career rose step by step. Profiles of her career say she served as vice president for student affairs at Holy Names University in Oakland from 2002 to 2005. In July 2005 she moved to Occidental College in Los Angeles as vice president for student affairs and dean of students, one of the most senior student life roles at the college. Later listings describe a final chapter as vice chancellor for campus inclusion and student life at the University of Michigan Flint, a role her profiles list as retired from around October 2019.

Marriage to James Avery

Barbara married James Avery in 1988, according to his Wikipedia biography and most major references. A few older film references give 1989, but 1988 is the date used by the strongest sources. James was already an established working actor by then, with years of television guest roles behind him, but his defining part was still two years away.

James Avery was an imposing actor with a deep, rich voice. Raised in New Jersey after being born in Virginia, he served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam era, studied drama and literature at the University of California, San Diego, and built his career through the 1980s on shows such as Hill Street Blues, Amen, and L.A. Law. He also became a major voice actor, most famously as the voice of Shredder in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and as James Rhodes, War Machine, in the Iron Man animated series.

In 1990 he became Philip Banks in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, opposite a young Will Smith. The show ran until 1996, and TV Guide later ranked Uncle Phil at number 34 in its list of the 50 greatest television fathers of all time. Through those years of fame, Barbara’s own career continued in parallel. The Averys were, by every account, a couple of two professionals: an actor at the height of television fame and a dean guiding students a short drive across Los Angeles.

James had no biological children. He became a stepfather to Barbara’s son, Kevin Waters, from her earlier life, and references also mention foster children the couple supported overseas. By family accounts shared in coverage of his life, he took the stepfather role seriously, and the warmth viewers saw in Uncle Phil had a real home version.

Life Together Away From the Cameras

The Averys kept their marriage mostly out of entertainment coverage. They appeared together at events from time to time, and Barbara was photographed with Fresh Prince cast members over the years, but neither of them sold their private life to magazines. James worked steadily after Fresh Prince ended, leading the sitcom Sparks, appearing in The Closer as Dr Crippen, guest starring in That ’70s Show and many other series, and hosting the PBS travel series Going Places in 1997.

Education connected them in public, too. James was proud of his own university, returning to UC San Diego’s Thurgood Marshall College as commencement speaker in 2007 and again in 2012. It is easy to picture those visits as shared ground for a couple where one partner had spent a lifetime inside universities. Barbara understood the world of students and campuses as well as anyone in his life.

Friends and co-stars who spoke after his death described a devoted marriage of twenty five years. In an industry known for short celebrity marriages, Barbara and James Avery built one that lasted from 1988 until his death, spanning his years as a jobbing actor, his Uncle Phil fame, and his later career as a respected elder of American television.

His Death and Her Life Since

James Avery died on December 31, 2013, at Glendale Memorial Medical Center in California. He was 68. His publicist confirmed that he died from complications following open heart surgery. His remains were cremated, and his ashes were scattered near the Pacific Ocean.

The tributes showed how deeply he was loved. Will Smith, Alfonso Ribeiro, Janet Hubert, and Joseph Marcell were among the Fresh Prince family who honoured him. In April 2020, Smith reunited the cast by video to remember Avery’s best moments, a reunion watched by millions, with Barbara’s late husband at its heart. A famous cast photo shared by Alfonso Ribeiro in January 2014 showed Barbara with the cast in those sad first days, a reminder that she was family to them as well.

Since 2013, Barbara has lived privately, based in California, and there is no public record of her remarrying. Her later career listings show her continuing in education into the late 2010s, including the University of Michigan Flint role listed as retired from 2019. Estimates of her personal wealth appear on some biography sites, usually in the range of one to two million dollars, but those are unverified estimates and should be read as such.

Her most visible public role now is as a guardian of her husband’s memory. In 2023, the first AveryFest, an annual African American cultural and music festival, was held in Suffolk, Virginia, near James Avery’s birthplace. Barbara attended the inaugural festival alongside Daphne Maxwell Reid, who played his television wife Vivian in the later Fresh Prince seasons. The festival included a jazz tribute in his honour, reflecting his love of jazz music. It was a fitting scene: the real wife and the television wife, together, celebrating the same man.

FAQs

Who is Barbara Avery?

Barbara Avery is an American educator and university administrator. She served as dean of students at Loyola Marymount University and later as vice president for student affairs at Holy Names University and Occidental College. She was married to actor James Avery from 1988 until his death in 2013.

Did James Avery and Barbara Avery have children?

James Avery had no biological children. He was the stepfather of Barbara’s son, Kevin Waters, and the couple are also reported to have supported foster children overseas.

What happened to James Avery?

He died on December 31, 2013, at the age of 68, from complications following open heart surgery. He is best remembered as Philip Banks, Uncle Phil, in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Where is Barbara Avery now?

She lives a private life, based in California, after a long career in higher education. She has appeared publicly for events honouring her husband, including the first AveryFest in Suffolk, Virginia, in 2023.

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Final Thoughts

Barbara Avery’s real story has two equal halves. One is a marriage of twenty five years to James Avery, the actor whose Uncle Phil became a father figure to a generation of viewers, and whose death in 2013 she met with dignity and privacy.

The other half is her own: a career spent at Loyola Marymount, Holy Names, Occidental, and beyond, guiding students through the most important years of their young lives. Long before and long after the cameras found her husband, Barbara Avery was already doing work that mattered. That is the real story, and it deserves to be told in her own name.

Featured photo: James Avery – photo by Brencoombs, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons