Claudine Longet had it all, for a while.
That ended when the chanteuse murdered skier and free spirit “Spider’ Sabich with a gunshot blast. An excerpt from an April 5, 1976 People article about the infamous incident:
‘What more could a woman want?’ singer-actress Claudine Longet once boasted to a friend. ‘I have my husband, my children and my lover.’ The husband was singer Andy Williams; the lover, ruggedly handsome Vladimir (‘Spider’) Sabich, 31, one of the most daring racers on the international pro ski circuit. In 1975, after a separation of nearly five years, Longet, 35, was granted a divorce from Williams. Then last week, in the rustically elegant stone-and-log house near Aspen, Colo. that Claudine and her three children shared with Sabich, the skier was shot and killed with a .22-caliber pistol.
Claudine, who had been seen with friends earlier in the day at a local pub known as the Center, told police Sabich had been showing her how to handle the gun when it accidentally discharged. She is scheduled to appear in court April 8 to learn if she will be formally accused. Although friends accept Longet’s account of the tragedy, they describe her four-year liaison with Sabich as turbulent. “They have had violent fights in public, screaming at each other,” said one. And it was widely reported in Starwood, an exclusive residential enclave where many of Aspen’s beautiful people dwell, that Sabich had told Claudine to move out of his $250,000 house by April 1. He still loved her, friends say, but felt confined by the constant presence of Longet and the children.•
