Claudine Longet Biography

Singer / Actor

Originally from France, Claudine Longet was a Las Vegas showgirl when superstar crooner Andy Williams discovered her. They were married in 1961, when Longet was still 19 and Williams was 33. He helped boost her career as an actress and singer; in her few TV and film appearances she was typecast as the innocently foxy mademoiselle, but she had more success in pop music. Given a contract by A&M Records, she recorded mostly soft covers of songs by popular rock groups, including the albums Claudine (1967) and Love is Blue (1968). She and Williams split in 1970, and a few years later she began dating champion skier Vladimir "Spider" Sabich. She shot and killed Sabich at their home in Aspen, Colorado in 1976, leading to a highly-publicized murder trial. Longet pled not guilty, saying the shooting was an accident. She was convicted of criminal negligence and sentenced to 30 days in jail. After her release she retired from the entertainment business and married her trial defense attorney, Ron Austin.

Extra credit: Longet and Williams separated in 1970 but weren't formally divorced until 1975. They have three children: Noelle (b. 1963), Christian (b. 1965) and Robert (b. 1969). Robert was named for Robert F. Kennedy, a close friend of Williams and Longet who was killed in 1968... The night after she shot Sabich, Longet stayed with neighbor John Denver and his wife.

Longet appears with Sonny Bono in our loop Ski Slope Mishaps... Other celebrity shooting cases include those of John Lennon, Robert Blake, Andy Warhol and (possibly) Thomas Ince.

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