Spider Sabich

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The avuncular crooner Andy Williams just passed away. From his New York Times obituary, a passage about the singer and his infamous wife Claudine Longet:

Mr. Williams married Ms. Longet in 1961, and they had two sons, Christian and Robert, and a daughter, Noelle. The couple divorced in 1975. That year Ms. Longet was charged with fatally shooting Spider Sabich, a ski racing champion, in Aspen, Colo. Mr. Williams stood by his ex-wife, who contended that the shooting was accidental, and accompanied her to court during her trial. She was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, and sentenced to 30 days in jail.•

Andy and Claudine, before it all went to hell, singing “Silent Night”:

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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.•

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Here’s the full 22-minute version of Paul Ryan’s excellent 1969 documentary, “Ski Racing,” which uses bold editing and FM radio rock to help profile that era’s world-class downhill racers. One of the pros included is Vladimir “Spider” Sabich who would die horribly in 1976 in ainfamous crime.

From the 1974 Sports Illustrated article, “The Spider Who Finally Came In From The Cold“:

In selling the tour, the sales pitch is not pegged strictly to exciting races and the crack skiers but also to its colorful personalities. There is Sabich, who flies, races motorcycles and figures that a night in which he hasn’t danced on at least one tabletop is a night wasted. Jim Lillstrom, Beattie’s P.R. man, also enjoys checking off some of the other characters.Norway’s Terje Overland is known as the Aquavit Kid for the boisterous postvictory celebrations he has thrown. He’s also been known to pitch over a fully laden restaurant table when the spirits have so moved him. Then there is the poet, Duncan Cullman, of Twin Mountain, N.H., author of The Selected Heavies of Duncan Duck, published at his own expense, who used to travel the tour with a gargantuan, bearded manservant. And Sepp Staffler, a popular Austrian, who plays guitar and sitar and performs nightly at different lounges in Great Gorge, N.J. when he isn’t competing. The ski tour also has its very own George Blanda. That would be blond, wispy Anderl Molterer, the 40-year-old Austrian, long a world class racer and still competitive.

Pro skiing’s immediate success, however, seems to depend on an authentic rivalry building up between Sabich and [Billy] Kidd, who are close friends but whose living styles are as diverse as snow and sand. Sabich is freewheeling on his skis as well as on tabletops. Kidd is thoughtful, earnest, a perfectionist. Spider has his flying, his motorcycles and drives a Porsche 911-E. Billy paints and now drives a Volvo station wagon. Spider enjoys the man-to-man challenge of the pro circuit. Billy harbors some inner doubts regarding his ability to adapt to it.•

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