Claudine Longet

Beauty and a Gun

Claudine had a string of hit records

Happier times for Claudine

Claudine met Pop singer/television star Andy Williams in Las Vegas in 1960 when she was 18 and he was 32.  Claudine was experiencing problems with her car and had pulled over to the side of the road.  Driving by, Williams stopped to offer assistance.  At that time she was the lead dancer of the Folies Bergère revue at the Tropicana Resort & Casino.  They married on 15 December 1961 in Los Angeles,and had three children.  They legally separated in 1970 and divorced in January 1975.  According to Williams, they remained very good friends. Claudine and Andy Williams were close friends of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy.  During the mid-1960s, 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 also took summer cruises on the Salmon River in central Idaho and on the Colorado River. On or before 4 June 1968, the day of the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primary in California, Kennedy — a contending Democratic presidential candidate — and his wife made tentative arrangements with Williams and Longet to visit a trendy local disco called The Factory.  According to Williams, Robert Kennedy told them that he would make a hand signal at the conclusion of his televised speech at the Ambassador Hotel to confirm their get-together.  Shortly after midnight on 5 June, Longet and Williams were watching Senator Kennedy's televised primary victory speech in Kennedy's suite in his hotel and saw Kennedy make the "little hand gesture".  When Williams rushed down to the hotel ballroom, he heard loud noises in the hallway and learned that Kennedy had been shot.  Longet and Williams eventually joined Kennedy's family and friends at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where doctors labored, in vain, to save the Senator's life.

Claudine and Spider

Claudine 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 Claudine said the gun discharged accidentally as Sabich was showing her how it worked.  Williams publicly supported Longet throughout the trial, even escorting her to and from the courthouse. The Aspen police made two procedural errors that aided Claudine's defense: without warrants, they took a blood sample from her; and they confiscated her diary.  According to prosecutors, the sample showed the presence of cocaine in her blood, and her diary reportedly contradicted her claim that her relationship with Sabich had not soured.  In addition, the gun was mishandled by non-weapons experts.  As they were unable to cite any of the disallowed material, prosecutors 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. The jury convicted her of a lesser charge — misdemeanor criminal negligence — and sentenced her to pay a small fine and spend 30 days in jail.  The judge allowed Claudine to choose the days to be served, believing that this arrangement would allow her to spend the most time with her children.  She chose to serve most of her sentence on weekends.  Critical reaction to the verdict and sentencing was exacerbated when she subsequently vacationed with her defense attorney, Ron Austin, who was married at the time; Longet and Austin later married and still live in Aspen.  After the criminal trial, the Sabich family initiated civil proceedings to sue Longet. The case was eventually resolved out of court, with the proviso that Longet never tell or write about her story.

Claudine, back in jail again

Claudine has not performed publicly since the trial.  Her public appearances since then have been limited to writing liner notes for a 2005 CD compilation and providing voice-over (off-camera) commentary for a 2003 A&E Biography documentary about Williams.  Interest in her music has resurged in recent years following several CD releases, inclusion of her songs on television and film soundtracks, and expressions of admiration by several young performers. Mick Jagger wrote a song about Spider Sabich's death that was recorded in November of 1977 during the Some Girls recording sessions.  The song, titled Claudine, carried lyrics that painted a graphic picture of some of the more salacious aspects of the affair and killing.  However, it was deemed too controversial and was removed from the album.  In November 2011, the track was finally released on the Rolling Stones' deluxe reissue of their album Some Girls.

Wanderin' Spirit
January, 2013
"Claudine Longet"

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