{"id":428861,"date":"2026-05-15T11:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428861\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T11:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:27:18","slug":"claudine-longet-dead-singer-who-fatally-shot-skier-spider-sabich-was-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428861\/","title":{"rendered":"Claudine Longet Dead: Singer Who Fatally Shot Skier Spider Sabich Was 84"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tClaudine Longet<\/a>, the French-American chanteuse whose first fame in music, on TV and as the wife of singing star Andy Williams was dwarfed by infamy after her fatal shooting of the Olympic skier Spider Sabich<\/a> in 1976, has died. She was 84.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer death was announced today by nephew Bryan Longet in a message shared on social media. He wrote: \u201cEven though she is no longer physically with us, her light, elegance, talent and kindness will continue to live on through the memories, music, photos and love she leaves behind\u2026As many of you know, Claudine was not only an icon to me \u2014 she was also my aunt, and someone incredibly special in my life. Since I was a little boy, I always told her that I would remain her number one fan, and that will never change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNo other details were shared.<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn on January 29, 1942, in Paris, Longet was the lead dancer of the Folies Berg\u00e8re revue at the Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas when, in 1960, she met Williams who also was performing in town. The couple often recounted their meet-cute when Williams saw Longet parked along a roadside with auto trouble. The two married the following year and eventually would have three children before divorcing in 1975.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring her marriage to Williams, Longet launched a TV acting career that included guest spots on such \u201960s series as McHale\u2019s Navy, Combat!, The Rat Patrol, Hogan\u2019s Heroes and Love, American Style. She appeared frequently on Williams\u2019 1963-67 variety series as well as his popular Christmas specials from the same era.<\/p>\n

\n\tELATED: Alan Osmond Dies: Co-Founder Of Hitmaking Vocal Group The Osmonds Was 76<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tLonget co-starred with Peter Sellers in Blake Edwards\u2019 1968 comedy The Party, also singing the film\u2019s Henry Mancini-Don Black song \u201cNothing to Lose.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tKnown for her breathy, sultry yet girlish vocal style, Longet achieved significant success on the record charts, beginning with her 1967 debut album,\u00a0Claudine, and, to a lesser extent, the subsequent The Look of Love\u00a0(1967) and\u00a0Love Is Blue\u00a0(1968). Several other albums followed, and singles from the period included cover versions of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cHere, There and Everywhere\u201d and \u201cGood Day Sunshine.\u201d Other covers included \u201cThe Look of Love,\u201d \u201cLove Is Blue\u201d and Randy Newman\u2019s \u201cI Think It\u2019s Going to Rain Today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter she and Williams divorced in \u201975, Longet lived with their children in Starwood, Colorado, sharing a chalet with skiing sensation Sabich, who was the inspiration for Robert Redford\u2019s character in Downhill Racer. The couple had met in \u201972 during a celebrity ski event, and on March 21, 1976, Longet fatally shot Sabich in the bathroom of the chalet they shared. She would later say the gun went off accidentally when the 31-year-old skier was demonstrating how it worked; he was struck once in abdomen and died, with Longet by his side, en route to the hospital.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Robert Redford Dies: Hollywood Icon & Sundance Pioneer Was 89<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tClaudine Longet and Spider Sabich in 1974<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tReports soon surfaced that Sabich had intended to ask Longet to move out of the chalet, with friends saying publicly that the couple\u2019s relationship had been under considerable strain.<\/p>\n

\n\tCharged with reckless manslaughter, Longet was the center of a headline-making trial, with a jury eventually convicting her of criminally negligent homicide in January 1977. She received two years\u2019 probation and a $250 fine and sentenced to 30 days in jail. The verdict, which effectively ended her show business career, outraged many of Sabich\u2019s fans as well as his family, who settled with Longet after suing for $1.3 million. She never spoke about the settlement.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring her trial, ex-husband Williams, who had remained a friend, testified on her behalf, repeatedly supporting her claim of an accidental shooting.<\/p>\n

\n\tCertainly not everyone was convinced. On April 24, 1976, in one of Saturday Night Live\u2018s most notorious \u201cWeekend Update\u201d segments ever, the incident was parodied with supposedly live coverage of the \u201cClaudine Longet Invitational Ski Championship.\u201d As faux-broadcasters played by Chevy Chase and Jane Curtain did play-by-play coverage over stock footage of actual skiing wipeouts, the sound of a gunshot was overdubbed just as the athletes fell. \u201cUh-oh, he seems to have been accidentally shot by Claudine Longet,\u201d Chase would say.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show made its first on-air apology the following week after being contacted by Longet\u2019s lawyers. Then-announcer Don Pardo read a statement saying: \u201cIt is desirable to correct any misunderstanding that a suggestion was made that, in fact, a crime had been committed. The satire was fictitious and its intent only humorous. This is a statement of apology if the material was misinterpreted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Rolling Stones also weighed in, recording a brutal \u201950s-style rock \u2018n\u2019 roll song called \u201cClaudine\u201d for the band\u2019s chart-topping 1978 album Some Girls. The song was not included on the album and has gone unreleased, though the recording is widely available on YouTube and other platforms, and features such lyrics as \u201cNow only Spider knows for sure\/But he ain\u2019t talkin\u2019 about it any more\/Is he, Claudine?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing her trial, Longet married her defense attorney Ronald Austin, and the two reportedly settled in Aspen, Colorodo, and Hawaii, where she would guard her privacy throughout the remainder of her life. Although complete information on survivors was not immediately available, she was predeceased by Christian Williams, her eldest child with Andy Williams. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Claudine Longet, the French-American chanteuse whose first fame in music, on TV and as the wife of singing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,219772,156,111,139,69,3868,219773],"class_list":["post-428861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-claudine-longet","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-obituary","tag-spider-sabich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}