French singer and actress Claudine Longet, who was on trial for the 1976 shooting death of her boyfriend, Olympic skier Spider Savic, has died, Telegram reported. She was 84 years old.
Longet played the role of an aspiring actress alongside Peter Sellers in Blake Edwards’ 1968 film The Party, and recorded a pop track for A&M Records before singing the Henry Mancini-Don Black song “Nothing to Lose.”
Longette married American singer and television entertainer Andy Williams in 1961 and appeared frequently on his NBC show with their three children. After divorcing Williams in 1975, Longet and her children began living with her boyfriend, Savich, in a home in Colorado. The two first met in 1972 at a celebrity ski exhibition in Bear Valley, California, and had been living together for several years at the time of the shooting.
On March 21, 1976, Longet shot and killed Sabic in the bathroom of his home with a German-made .22 caliber gun that his father had purchased. She claimed that the gun accidentally discharged while he was teaching her how the gun worked. Savic died of his gunshot wounds on the way to the hospital, and Ronje was charged in April with reckless manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Prosecutors faced difficulties due to mishandling of evidence and illegal investigative practices, and a jury ultimately convicted Longet of criminally negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, in January 1977. She was sentenced to two years’ probation, a $250 fine, and 30 days in jail.
Mr. Savic’s family filed a $1.3 million civil lawsuit against Mr. Longet, but the case was settled out of court with Mr. Longet agreeing never to speak publicly about Savic or his death.
Longet was born on January 29, 1942 in Paris. Her career began with a production of The Turn of the Screw at the age of 10, and went on to appear on French television and in plays in Milan and Venice.
She moved to Las Vegas and first met Williams when she was a showgirl at the Folies Bergere revue at the Tropicana in 1960.
In 1963, Longet made his first appearance on “The Andy Williams Show” and appeared in episodes of “McHale’s Navy” and “Dr. Kildare.” She went on to guest star on “Combat!,” “12 O’Clock High,” “Mr. Novak,” “Hogan’s Heroes,” and NBC’s “Run for Your Life,” the latter of which earned her a contract with Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’ new A&M label after her singing on the show.
Her first album, “Claudine,” was released in 1967 and sold over one million copies.
Longet and Williams were close friends of Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, and watched Kennedy’s televised primary victory speech from the second floor of the senator’s suite in Los Angeles in 1968. The couple joined Kennedy’s family at Good Samaritan Hospital after he was shot and named their son after him.
Longet and one of her attorneys, Ronald Austin, married in June 1985 and eventually moved to Hawaii. Williams had three children with her, sons Christian and Bobby, and daughter Noelle, but she reportedly died in 2023.
