French singer and actress Claudine Longet, whose life and career became overshadowed by the 1976 shooting death of Olympic skier Spider Sabich, has died at the age of 84, according to reports from the Telegram.
Longet rose to fame in the 1960s as a recording artist with A&M Records and gained further recognition for performing the song “Nothing to Lose” in the 1968 comedy film The Party, directed by Blake Edwards and starring Peter Sellers.
She married singer and television host Andy Williams in 1961 and frequently appeared alongside him on The Andy Williams Show with their three children. Following their divorce in 1975, Longet moved to Colorado, where she lived with Sabich. The couple had first met in 1972 during a celebrity skiing event in Bear Valley, California.
On March 21, 1976, Longet shot Sabich in the bathroom of his Colorado home with a .22-caliber handgun reportedly purchased by his father. She maintained that the gun discharged accidentally while Sabich was demonstrating how it operated. Sabich later died from the gunshot wound while being transported to the hospital.
Longet was charged with reckless manslaughter the following month and faced a possible 10-year prison sentence. However, the prosecution’s case was weakened by improperly handled evidence and illegal search procedures. In January 1977, a jury convicted her of criminally negligent homicide, a misdemeanor offense. She received a sentence of two years’ probation, a $250 fine, and 30 days in jail.
Sabich’s family later filed a $1.3 million civil lawsuit against Longet, though the matter was eventually settled out of court. As part of the agreement, Longet reportedly agreed never to publicly discuss Sabich or the circumstances surrounding his death.
Born in Paris on January 29, 1942, Longet began performing at a young age, appearing in a production of The Turn of the Screw when she was 10 years old. She later worked in television and theater productions across Europe before moving to Las Vegas, where she performed as a showgirl in the Folies Bergère at the Tropicana Hotel. It was there, in 1960, that she met Williams.
Longet made her debut on The Andy Williams Show in 1963 and went on to appear in several popular television series, including McHale’s Navy, Dr. Kildare, Hogan’s Heroes, and Combat!.
Her debut album, Claudine, was released in 1967 and sold more than one million copies.
Longet and Williams were also close friends of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel Kennedy. The couple was present at the hotel during Kennedy’s 1968 California primary victory speech and later joined his family at the hospital after he was shot. They named one of their sons in his honor.
In 1985, Longet married her defense attorney, Ronald Austin, and the couple later settled in Hawaii. She is survived by her sons, Christian and Bobby. Her daughter, Noelle, reportedly died in 2023.