Claudine Longet shot her boyfriend dead in 1976, was convicted of a misdemeanor, and paid a fine of just $250. Before she finished serving her 30-day weekend jail sentence, she flew to Mexico with her defense attorney, who left his wife for her. Longet was born in Paris in 1942 and began dancing for tourists as a teenager. A nightclub promoter named Lou Walters spotted her and brought her to Las Vegas, where she danced in the Folies Bergère at the Tropicana.
While struggling with her car in Las Vegas, she was helped by singer Andy Williams. They married on December 15, 1961, and had three children. Williams’ career took off when he sang “Moon River” at the Academy Awards in 1962 and later landed his own TV show, where Longet appeared as a guest. She pursued acting and singing, appearing in shows like McHale’s Navy and Hogan’s Heroes.
Her performance on Run for Your Life impressed Herb Alpert, co-founder of A&M Records, who offered her a contract on the spot. Longet and Williams became friends with Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel. On June 4, 1968, they were watching the California presidential primary results in a suite at the Ambassador Hotel when they heard gunshots.
Kennedy was shot and later died at Good Samaritan Hospital. Longet and Williams later named their third son Robert in tribute. Longet appeared in the 1968 film The Party with Peter Sellers, which became a cult hit. Her marriage to Williams deteriorated, and the couple separated in 1970.
In 1972, Longet met former Olympic skier Spider Sabich at a celebrity ski race in Bear Valley, California. They began a relationship and she moved with her three children to Aspen, Colorado. Reports suggested Sabich, once considered one of America’s most eligible bachelors, was thinking about ending the relationship. On the night of March 21, 1976, Sabich was preparing to take a shower when Longet entered the bathroom holding a pistol.
He was shot in the abdomen and died from blood loss in the ambulance. Police charged Longet with manslaughter. She claimed Sabich was showing her how to use the pistol and it accidentally went off. A blood sample showed she had used cocaine before the incident, and her diary reportedly described the relationship going badly.
The prosecution’s case was damaged by police errors. Authorities took her blood sample and confiscated her diary without a warrant, so both were excluded from evidence. An inexperienced officer wrapped the pistol in a towel, left it in his glove compartment for weeks, and compromised the weapon as evidence. The autopsy contradicted Longet’s account.
It indicated that when the pistol fired, Sabich was standing nearly two meters away, bent over, with his back to her. The trial lasted four days, and the jury deliberated for four hours. She was convicted of misdemeanor negligence, fined $250, and sentenced to 30 days in jail, to be served on weekends. Before completing her sentence, she went on a holiday to Mexico with her lawyer, Ron Austin, who left his wife for her.
Sabich’s family filed a civil lawsuit in May 1977. The case ended in an out-of-court settlement, with the condition that Longet could never discuss or write about the settlement or the night of the shooting. Longet married Austin in 1985, and they remained in Aspen. In 1978, her image appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stones’ album Some Girls.
The band also recorded a song called “Claudine” with lyrics referencing the shooting, but their lawyers blocked its release. In 2023, Longet and Austin sold their Aspen property for nearly $60 million and moved to Hawaii. Longet died on May 14, 2026, at the age of 84. Frank Tucker, the prosecutor in the case, later summarized his view of the trial: “When a celebrity walks into court through the front door, justice walks out the back.
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