Overview
- Her nephew, Bryan Longet, announced the death Thursday in a social media post, and no cause was disclosed.
- Longet was a French-born singer and actress who recorded the hit album Claudine, sang Nothing to Lose in The Party, and appeared often on The Andy Williams Show after marrying Williams in 1961.
- In March 1976, she shot her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich, with a .22-caliber German-made pistol in their Aspen home, and she said the gun fired by accident while he showed her how it worked.
- A jury in January 1977 convicted her of criminally negligent homicide after key evidence was ruled inadmissible because police mishandled items and drew her blood without a warrant, and she received probation, a $250 fine, and 30 days in jail served on dates she chose.
- The Sabich family later settled a $1.3 million civil suit with terms barring her from speaking about him or the shooting, and she left public life, married her defense attorney Ron Austin in 1985, and lived privately in Aspen and Hawaii.