{"id":2417780,"date":"2026-05-15T09:15:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2417780"},"modified":"2026-05-15T09:15:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:15:03","slug":"claudine-longet-singer-and-actor-at-center-of-a-notorious-manslaughter-trial-dies-at-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/claudine-longet-singer-and-actor-at-center-of-a-notorious-manslaughter-trial-dies-at-84\/","title":{"rendered":"Claudine Longet, singer and actor at center of a notorious manslaughter trial, dies at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"

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NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 Claudine Longet, the French singer and actor who was at the center of a highly publicized manslaughter trial after she was charged with the fatal shooting of her boyfriend, Olympic skier<\/a> Vladimir \u201cSpider\u201d Sabich, has died at age 84.<\/p>\n

Longet’s nephew, Bryan Longet, announced her death in a social media post on Thursday. \u201cYou have been a true inspiration in my life and you will always be,” he wrote. “Another star in the sky. Thank you for everything, my aunt.\u201d <\/p>\n

Reached by phone by The Associated Press, he confirmed Longet had died but did not reveal the cause of her death.<\/p>\n

Longet was a native Parisian who had been acting since childhood. She appeared in numerous TV shows, recorded such hit albums as \u201cClaudine\u201d and was widely known for the bossa nova-style ballad \u201cNothing to Lose,\u201d a highlight of the 1968 movie \u201cThe Party\u201d that starred Longet and Peter Sellers. <\/p>\n

At the time, she was married to singer Andy Williams, whom she had met in the early ’60s while dancing in a Las Vegas revue. But by the mid-1970s, she and Williams were divorced and she was living near Aspen, Colorado, with Sabich, who had competed for the United States in the 1968 Olympics. <\/p>\n

On March 21, 1976,<\/a> a day that would long be scrutinized, she shot him at their home with a Luger pistol that she would contend he had been showing her and fired accidentally. Sabich, 31, died of a single shot to his abdomen; Longet had accompanied him in the ambulance to the hospital. <\/p>\n

Her trial in Aspen attracted worldwide attention. Williams was among those present, escorting her to and from the courthouse, paying for her legal fees and otherwise supporting his former wife and the mother of their three children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was unfair, I thought she was innocent, I thought it was an accident,\u201d Williams told \u201cCBS This Morning\u201d in 2009.<\/p>\n

Longet had been charged with reckless manslaughter, but law enforcement officials made such critical errors as taking a blood sample from Longet without a warrant. After four days of deliberation in January 1977, the jury found her guilty of negligent homicide. She was given two years\u2019 probation, fined $250 and sentenced to 30 days in jail, eventually served on dates of her choosing.<\/p>\n

Longet’s career in entertainment was effectively over, though, and for a time she was the subject of mockery in popular culture, from a skit on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d to the Rolling Stones rocker \u201cClaudine,\u201d which featured a taunting refrain, \u201cClaudine’s back in jail again.\u201d (The song was unreleased for decades).<\/p>\n

Longet later married her defense attorney, Ron Austin, and lived with him in Aspen. After Sabich’s family filed a $1.3 million lawsuit in 1977 against her, the two sides reached a settlement that barred Longet from ever discussing Sabich or the trial.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Samuel Petrequin in London contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wsls.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 Claudine Longet, the French singer and actor who was at the center of a highly publicized manslaughter trial after she was charged with the fatal shooting of her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir \u201cSpider\u201d Sabich, has died at age 84. Longet’s nephew, Bryan Longet, announced her death in a social media post on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2417781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[410474,473394,473392,21741,410503,473393,22814],"class_list":["post-2417780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-andy-williams","tag-bryan-longet","tag-claudine-longet","tag-entertainment","tag-peter-sellers","tag-ron-austin","tag-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Claudine-Longet-singer-and-actor-at-center-of-a-notorious.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2417780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2417782,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417780\/revisions\/2417782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2417781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2417780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2417780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2417780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}