Claudine Longet Dies at 84 After Spider Sabich Case
claudine longet has died at 84, closing the life of a singer-actress whose name became inseparable from the 1976 killing of Olympic skier Spider Sabich. Her death was reported Thursday by her nephew Bryan Longet. For readers who remember the case, it is the final chapter on a performer whose career was overtaken by one courtroom saga.
Paris to A&M Records
Born Claudine Georgette Longet in Paris on Jan. 29, 1942, she entered performance early, appearing in a production of The Turn of the Screw at 10. She later turned up on French television and in plays in Milan and Venice before Lou Walters hired her in 1960, when she was dancing in a Folies Bergère revue at the Tropicana in Las Vegas.
In December 1961, she married Andy Williams and later appeared on his long-running NBC variety show and Christmas specials with their three children. She also recorded albums of breathy pop for A&M Records and sang “Nothing to Lose” in Blake Edwards’ The Party in 1968, playing an aspiring actress alongside Peter Sellers. That run gave her a visible pop-culture lane before the case that ended it.
Starwood, Colorado, 1976
On March 21, 1976, Longet shot Sabich in his bathroom in Starwood, Colorado, using a.22-caliber German-made gun that had been purchased by his father. She said the weapon accidentally discharged while he was showing her how it worked. Sabich died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen.
A month later, she was charged with reckless manslaughter and faced as many as 10 years in prison. At her Aspen trial, Williams escorted her to and from the courtroom, testified on her behalf and provided legal assistance. A jury later convicted her of criminally negligent homicide in January 1977 after four days of testimony and 3 1/2 hours of deliberations.
January 1977 Verdict
At 36, she received two years’ probation, a $250 fine and 30 days in jail, and she was able to serve most of that sentence on weekends. The Sabich family later filed a civil suit against her for $1.3 million, and the case was settled out of court. As part of that settlement, she agreed not to speak publicly about Sabich or the murder and not to publish a book about her life and trial.
That agreement tracked the real business consequence of the case: her career as a singer and actress was done after the settlement. Her death now shuts the book on a name that moved from television and records to a criminal case that overshadowed everything before it.
