(CNN) - He was not just an actor, he was a charitable man too. Those are the sentiments being expressed by a California couple about Paul Walker after learning he was mystery man who paid for their engagement ring.
"It's still to this day the most generous thing anyone has ever done for me," Kristen Upham said.
Kristen and Kyle Upham never got that perfect ring when they quickly married before Kyle left for his army deployment to Iraq. But in 2004, they said actor Paul Walker made that wish come true while the couple was shopping for a ring in Santa Barbara.
"I noticed there was someone else in there but didn't give it much thought and we started looking at rings and what not and he kept wanting me to go bigger and I kept saying 'no look at the prices,'" she said.
Kyle struck up a conversation with Walker and figured out he was the movie star.
"When we were talking you know we exchanged names you know, kind of talked about what each of us did," Kyle said.
"And when he found out Kyle had just come back I remember seeing the look in his face, he it kind of transformed," Kristen recalled.
The couple left the store without a ring, but a short time later the salesperson called them back.
"One of the ladies came out holding a bag and just simply said, 'here's your ring' and I think both of our mouths dropped. And I think after a couple of minutes of shell shocked it finally sunk in and we were like well how, who bought it? She just smiled at me and said it was better not to say."
The couple recently figured out who purchased the ring after the jewelry story shared the story with reporters following Walker's death.
