Claudine Longet

Parties and identities

Claudine Georgette Longet (born 29 January 1942) was a French singer, actress, dancer and recording artist who was popular during the 1960s and 1970s.

Claudine Longet shot and fatally injured her boyfriend, former Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich.

Vladimir “Spider” Sabich, Jr. (October 1, 1945 – March 21, 1976) was an American alpine ski racer and a member of the U.S. Ski Team in the late 1960s. He competed at the 1968 Winter Olympics and was pro ski racing champion in 1971 and 1972.

Longet was arrested and charged with the shooting.

Timeline

• 15 December 1961 — Longet and Andy Williams married in Los Angeles.
• 21 March 1976 — Sabich was preparing to shower at his Starwood home in Aspen; he was shot in the bathroom by his live-in girlfriend, singer-actress Claudine Longet.
• March 21, 1976 — Sabich died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
• January 1977 — Longet’s criminal trial took place at the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen.
• January 31, 1977 — Longet was sentenced to pay a $250 fine and spend 30 days in jail.
• 6 June 1968 — After Robert Kennedy died during the early morning hours, Longet and Andy Williams went into his hospital room.
• 8 June 1968 — Longet attended Senator Kennedy’s funeral Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
• 5 June 1968 — Longet and Andy Williams watched Senator Kennedy’s televised primary victory speech and saw Kennedy make the “little hand gesture”.
• 4 June 1968 — On or before 4 June 1968, tentative arrangements were made to visit The Factory disco.

Background

Claudine Longet was born in Paris, France. She was married to pop singer Andy Williams from 1961 until 1975.

Longet maintained a private profile since 1977 following her conviction for misdemeanor negligent homicide in connection with the death of her boyfriend, former Olympic skier Spider Sabich.

Acting and music career

Longet’s first appearances as an actress on television were in two 1963 episodes of the comedy series McHale’s Navy. She acted in the 1964 theatrical feature film of the same title.

In the 1960s, her acting roles included episodes of television adventure series that included Twelve O’Clock High, Combat!, The Name of the Game, The Rat Patrol and Hogan’s Heroes (episode “It Takes a Thief … Sometime”).

She appeared many times on The Andy Williams Show and specials. She occasionally appeared as a singer on other variety and music programs, including those of Bobby Darin and Tom Jones.

Blake Edwards wrote, produced, and directed The Party, a 1968 MGM motion picture in which Longet costarred with Peter Sellers. Longet sang “Nothing to Lose” (music by Henry Mancini and lyrics by Don Black) in the film.

In 1971, she joined Williams’ Barnaby Records label. She released singles and two albums for Barnaby, “We’ve Only Just Begun” in 1971 and “Let’s Spend the Night Together” in 1972. A projected third album went unreleased, and songs from it later appeared on the 1993 compact disc release titled Sugar Me.

In 1975, she appeared as “The Flower” (a nonsinging role) on the children’s album The Little Prince based on the Antoine de Saint Exupéry novel. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Album for Children in 1976.

Longet’s debut album Claudine peaked at #11 on the Billboard pop albums chart in the United States and became a RIAA-certified gold album selling more than 500,000 copies. Subsequent albums The Look of Love (peaked at #33 in 1967) and Love is Blue (peaked at #29 in 1968) charted on Billboard pop albums charts.

Her musical cohort on charting albums included arranger Nick De Caro, who arranged her A&M albums Colours (1968) and Run Wild, Run Free (1970), and her Barnaby album We’ve Only Just Begun.

Longet had hit singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, including “Here, There and Everywhere”, “Hello, Hello”, “Good Day Sunshine”, “Small Talk”, and “Love is Blue”. Another song, “Wanderlove”, went to #7 on the singles charts in Singapore.

Marriage to Andy Williams

Andy Williams and Longet met in Las Vegas in 1960 when she was 18 and he was 32. She had pulled over due to problems with her car, and Williams stopped to offer assistance.

They married on 15 December 1961 in Los Angeles and had three children: Noëlle (born 24 September 1963), Christian (born 15 April 1965), and Robert (“Bobby”) (born 1 August 1969). They legally separated in 1970 and divorced in January 1975.

Longet and Williams remained friendly.

According to the provided material, Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy and his wife, Ethel Kennedy, were close friends of Longet and Williams. They regularly socialized at Longet’s and Williams’s residences in Bel Air and Palm Springs and at the Kennedy residences at Hickory Hill and New York City. They took summer cruises on the Salmon River in central Idaho and on the Colorado River.

On or before 4 June 1968, on the day of the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primary in California, Kennedy made tentative arrangements with Williams and Longet to visit The Factory disco. After midnight on 5 June, in Kennedy’s suite at his hotel, Williams rushed down to the hotel ballroom after hearing loud noises in the hallway and learned that Kennedy had been shot. After Kennedy died in the early morning hours of 6 June, Longet and Williams attended funeral events including the funeral Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on 8 June, and then participated in the funeral train.

The offence

Shooting of Spider Sabich

Late in the afternoon of 21 March 1976, Sabich returned from a day of skiing in Aspen and was preparing to shower. He was shot in the bathroom of his Starwood home by his live-in girlfriend, singer-actress Claudine Longet.

The two had met at a pro-celebrity event four years earlier in 1972 in Bear Valley, California, and were quickly a couple.

Longet claimed the gun discharged accidentally when Sabich was showing her how it worked.

Sabich was hit in the abdomen and lost a significant amount of blood before the ambulance arrived. Sabich died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, with Longet at his side.

Arrest and investigation

Longet was arrested and charged with fatally shooting her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich, at his Aspen, Colorado home on 21 March 1976.

At her trial, Longet said the gun discharged accidentally as Sabich was showing her how it worked. She said the gun discharged accidentally as Sabich was showing her how it worked.

Procedural errors

The Aspen police made two procedural errors that aided Longet’s defense:

• They took a blood sample without warrants.
• They confiscated her diary without a warrant.

According to prosecutors, the blood sample showed the presence of cocaine in her blood, and her diary reportedly contradicted her claim that her relationship with Sabich had not soured.

The gun was mishandled by non-weapons experts. Prosecutors also used the autopsy report to suggest that when Sabich was shot he was bent over, facing away, and at least 1.80 m (6 ft) from Longet, which would be inconsistent with the position and relative distance of someone demonstrating the operation of a firearm.

Evidence rulings

Before the trial, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Longet’s rights were violated by the blood test and diary seizure.

Trial

Longet pleaded not guilty. A trial was scheduled for January 1977.

The criminal trial took place at the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen.

Jury verdict

The jury convicted Longet of a lesser charge:

• misdemeanor criminal negligence

The jury sentenced Longet to pay a small fine and spend 30 days in jail.

The provided material states that the jury took three hours and 40 minutes to return a verdict after four days of testimony.

The jury passed on a felony charge of reckless manslaughter and convicted Longet of criminally negligent homicide, a misdemeanor.

Statements and testimony

During jury selection, Longet wept in a minidress and knee boots as citizens announced her guilt. She told reporters: “To me, this is all total despair”.

A police officer testified that Longet said she pointed the gun at Sabich and said “bang-bang” or “boom-boom”.

From her seat at the defense table, Longet all but shouted: “It’s not true!”

“I picked up the gun and walked toward the bathroom, saying to Spider, 'I would like you to tell me about this gun.' I kept walking and I had the gun in my hand.”

Longet said she asked Sabich whether the gun was safe, and they exchanged a few words about the safety switch.

“He said, 'Yes, it' s safe.' I said, 'It won' t fire?' ”

Longet said the gun went off at that instant.

Longet described Sabich staggering and holding his abdomen.

“Spider called my name three times and he sort of slid down.”

She said she tried to give Sabich mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“I tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but I didn't know how.”

When asked about her relationship with Sabich, Longet said:

“Spider and I loved each other very much,” she said.
“I think we were the very best of friends. There were times over four years when we disagreed on things. We would have small arguments... But above all, we were the very best of friends and loved each other very much.”

In a closing statement, attorney Weedman said:

“If there's any evil in this town,” Weedman said, “it was the evil of the gossip about the relationship between Spider and Claudine... Not one single loud-mouthed gossip was able to come here and tell you anything bad about this relationship. For that, there should be some shame in this community.”

Longet later told reporters: “I am not guilty. I have too much respect for human life to be guilty.”

Juror Daniel DeWolfe told the Associated Press:

“I wouldn't want her to go to prison, heavens no,” juror Daniel DeWolfe, 27, told the Associated Press.
“By no means is she the type of person who should be in jail. I don't think she's a threat to society.”

He also said:

“I think they should have plea-bargained and straightened this out,” DeWolfe said.
“There was no need to make this big fuss about it.”

Evidence regarding the gun

A defense witness said the safety on the gun was defective and that the firing mechanism had been lubricated with too much grease. The witness said it was possible that the gun fired accidentally.

The evidence described the handgun as a cheap knockoff of a German Luger that Vladimir Sabich Sr. purchased while in France to watch his son at the 1968 Olympics. Sabich Sr. gave the gun to his son Steve, who stored it at Spider’s chalet. Longet claimed she discovered the gun in a closet on the day of the shooting.

Prosecutor quote

Frank Tucker, a county prosecutor, read the diary and said:

“She was an over-the-hill glamourpuss, and she was not going to lose another man,” Tucker said.
“Andy Williams had already dumped her, and she was not going to be dumped again, thank you.”

Outside the courtroom, Longet lambasted prosecutor Tucker.

Longet said: “I think it's very unfortunate that I fell into the hands of a district attorney more concerned with his own ambitions than with justice,”

Tucker replied: “She was the victim of her own recklessness and carelessness. It's always good to be able to blame someone else.”

Sentencing

On January 31, 1977, the judge sentenced Longet to pay a $250 fine and spend 30 days in jail.

Before sentencing, Judge George Lohr said:

“The defendant did not intentionally cause the death of Spider Sabich,” Judge Lohr began.
“All of the evidence is that the defendant and the decedent had a close personal relationship and the death of the decedent was a deep personal tragedy to her.”

Judge Lohr denounced Aspen for hostility toward Longet and castigated people who wrote him letters urging a tough sentence.

Before sentencing, Longet stood before Lohr in a flowered minidress and begged for mercy on behalf of her children.

Longet said:

“My children and I are very close,” she whispered.
“We love each other very much. They respect me and they firmly believe in my innocence. They are beautiful. They are happy. They are very gentle and open. With all my heart, I would like them to stay that way.”

Judge Lohr decreed the $250 fine and 30 days in county jail, to be served “at a time of her choosing”.

The provided material states Longet chose to serve most of her sentence on weekends.

Outcome

After the criminal trial, the Sabich family initiated civil proceedings to sue Longet.

The case was eventually resolved out of court with a provision that Longet never tell or write about her story.

A wrongful-death civil lawsuit was filed by Vladimir Sabich Sr.; the parties settled out of court after Longet agreed to a confidentiality clause barring her from speaking about Sabich.

Vladimir Sabich Sr. told the Sacramento Bee in 1996: “I wasn't looking for money. I just wanted the truth. I kept her from publishing a book.”

Former district attorney Frank Tucker was quoted as saying: “I've always known she shot Spider Sabich and meant to do it,”

Steve Sabich said: “It's a shame, because Spider accomplished so much in his life,” and “Claudine accomplished only two things — marrying Andy Williams and getting away with murder.”

Other details

Longet was described as having not performed publicly since the trial. Her public appearances were limited to writing liner notes for a 2005 CD compilation and providing voice-over commentary for a 2003 A&E Biography documentary about Williams.

The provided material included an item about a 1977 Saturday Night Live segment featuring the “Claudine Longet Invitational Ski Shoot,” with Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin playing commentators and a film showing a skier crashing after the sound of gunfire. Curtin said: “Uh-oh,” Curtin said, “he seems to have been accidentally shot by Claudine Longet.”

The provided material also included lyrics from the Rolling Stones LP Emotional Rescue (delayed in 1980), quoting:

“ Oh, Claudine/Now only Spider knows for sure/But he ain't talkin' about it any more/Is he, Claudine?/There's blood in the chalet/And blood in the snow/She washed her hands of the whole damn show/The best thing you could do, Claudine .”

Spider Sabich was buried at Westwood Hills Memorial Park in Placerville, CA.

The provided material stated that the Sabich-Longet funeral presence was awkward for the Sabich family.

In one quoted account, it stated: “Spider accomplished so much in his life,” and “Claudine accomplished only two things — marrying Andy Williams and getting away with murder.”