Claudine Longet, French Pop Star and True-Crime Figure, Dead at 84

Claudine Longet — chanteuse, alleged killer, and Gilmore Girls name-check — has died. She was 84. Longet’s nephew Bryan Longet confirmed the news to the Associated Press. “You have been a true inspiration in my life and you will always be,” he wrote on social media. “Another star in the sky. Thank you for everything, my aunt.”

Longet was born in 1942 in Paris, France. She moved to America and began acting and singing in the ’60s. She was a frequent guest on The Andy Williams Show, and she and Williams eventually married. Longet starred in The Party, a Peter Sellers–in-brownface comedy that eventually inspired Mike Myers’s The Love Guru.

Aside from her singing and acting, Longet is probably best known for the 1976 death of her then-boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich. On March 21, 1976, Longet shot Sabich in their Aspen home. She claimed the gun went off when he was trying to teach her how to use it; prosecution contended she shot him intentionally. Longet was charged with reckless manslaughter, and her defense was paid for by ex-husband Williams. He would escort her to and from the courthouse every day. The police mishandled much of the evidence, and Longet was eventually sentenced to 30 days in jail. She was allowed to pick the days she would spend in jail, and she served most of her time on weekends. The Rolling Stones wrote a song about her weekends of imprisonment, “Claudine,” which appeared on the Some Girls deluxe reissue. Longet eventually married one of her defense attorneys, Ronald D. Austin. They lived together until her death.

After her trial, Longet lived quietly in Aspen. Her cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” was featured on the Gilmore Girls soundtrack. Her music also appears in Pineapple Express and The Politician.