Claudine Longet, the French singer and actress who underwent a 1976 trial after she shot and killed her boyfriend, Olympic skier Spider Sabich, has died, in line with the Telegram. She was 84.
Longet recorded pop tracks for A&M Information earlier than she sang the Henry Mancini-Don Black tune “Nothing to Lose” in Blake Edwards’ 1968 movie “The Party,” wherein she portrayed an aspiring actress alongside Peter Sellers.
Longet married American singer and tv entertainer Andy Williams in 1961 and infrequently appeared on his NBC present, joined by their three youngsters. After she and Williams divorced in 1975, Longet and her youngsters started residing together with her boyfriend, Sabich, at his Colorado house. The pair first met in 1972 at a star snowboarding exhibition in Bear Valley, Calif., and had been residing collectively for a few years on the time of the capturing.
Longet shot Sabich on March 21, 1976, in his lavatory with a .22-caliber German‐made gun that had been bought by his father. She claimed the gun by accident discharged as he was displaying her the way it labored. Sabich died from his gunshot wound on the best way to the hospital, and Longet was charged with reckless manslaughter in April, going through as much as 10 years in jail. The prosecution confronted hurdles resulting from mishandled proof and unlawful search practices, and the jury finally convicted Longet of criminally negligent murder, a misdemeanor cost, in January 1977. She was given two years’ probation, fined $250 and sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Sabich’s household filed a civil go well with towards Longet for $1.3 million, however the case was settled out of courtroom, with Longet agreeing to by no means communicate publicly about Sabich or his loss of life.
Longet was born in Paris on Jan. 29, 1942. Her profession started with a manufacturing of “The Turn of the Screw” when she was 10, later showing on French tv and in performs in Milan and Venice.
She had moved to Las Vegas and was a showgirl at a Folies Bergère revue on the Tropicana in 1960 when she first met Williams.
In 1963, Longet appeared for the primary time on “The Andy Williams Show” and acted in episodes of “McHale’s Navy” and “Dr. Kildare.” She later guest-starred on installments of “Combat!,” “12 O’Clock High,” “Mr. Novak,” “Hogan’s Heroes” and NBC’s “Run for Your Life,” the latter of which helped her land a contract at Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’ new A&M label resulting from her singing on the present.
Her first album, titled “Claudine,” was launched in 1967 and bought greater than 1,000,000 copies.
Longet and Williams have been shut buddies of Robert F. Kennedy and his spouse, Ethel, and watched his televised major victory speech in Los Angeles upstairs within the senator’s suite in 1968. The couple joined Kennedy’s household at Good Samaritan Hospital after he was shot, and named their son after him.
Longet and one in every of her protection attorneys, Ronald Austin, wed in June 1985 and finally moved to Hawaii. She had three youngsters with Williams: sons Christian and Bobby and daughter Noelle, who reportedly died in 2023.
