\t\t\t\t\tClaudine Longet with Peter Sellers in 1968\u2019s \u2018The Party.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Everett Collection<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tClaudine Georgette Longet was born in Paris on Jan. 29, 1942. Her father was a businessman specializing in X-ray technology; her mother was a doctor. She was in a production of The Turn of the Screw<\/em> when she was 10, then appeared on French television and in plays in Milan and Venice.<\/p>\n \n\tHired by nightclub impresario Lou Walters (Barbara Walters<\/a>\u2019 father), Longet had moved to Las Vegas and was dancing in a Folies Berg\u00e8re revue at the Tropicana in 1960 when she first met Williams alongside a highway in town.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMy manager and I were driving down there and we saw this lovely girl and her girlfriend, who was also quite pretty, pushing this car,\u201d he told Bowers. \u201cAnd so, being gallant \u2014 and also because they looked pretty good \u2014 we stopped to see if we could help them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThey started dating, and after Williams proposed to her in Paris \u2014 she had returned home to her parents, who were alarmed that she was dating an older man \u2014 they wed at a church in Bel-Air on Dec. 15, 1961 (she was 19, he was 34).<\/p>\n \n\tIn 1963, Longet appeared for the first time on The Andy Williams Show<\/em> and acted on episodes of McHale\u2019s Navy<\/em> and Dr. Kildare<\/em>. She later guest-starred on installments of Combat!<\/em>, 12 O\u2019Clock High<\/em>, Mr. Novak<\/em> and Hogan\u2019s Heroes<\/em> before playing a novelist named Nicole who has a romance with Ben Gazzara\u2019s character on the first-season finale of NBC\u2019s Run for Your Life<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tOn the May 1966 episode, Longet mimicked playing the guitar and sang an English-French version of the bossa nova song \u201cMeditation.\u201d<\/a> That got her a contract at Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss<\/a>\u2019 new A&M label, which released \u201cMeditation\u201d as a single. Her first album, 1967\u2019s Claudine<\/em>, produced by Tommy LiPuma, sold more than a million copies.<\/p>\n \n\tShe would record three more LPs for A&M before jumping to Williams\u2019 new Barnaby imprint for 1969\u2019s We\u2019ve Only Just Begun<\/em>. She and her husband separated around that time \u2014 \u201cWe just sort of grew apart, I was never home \u2026 it was all my fault, I just didn\u2019t take care of my marriage,\u201d he said \u2014 though she would continue to appear on his TV shows through 1974. (Her last album was 1972\u2019s Let\u2019s Spend the Night<\/em> Together<\/em>.)<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, Longet also showed up in the 1965 McHale\u2019s Navy<\/em> feature and Massacre Harbor<\/em> (1968) and on TV in The Name of the Game<\/em>, The F.B.I.<\/em>, The Bold Ones<\/em>, Love, American Style<\/em>, Alias Smith and Jones<\/em> and The Streets of San Francisco<\/em>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tClaudine Longet with Andy Williams and their kids, Bobby (left), Noelle and Christian, in a photo for his 1973 Christmas special. <\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Everett Collection<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tLonget and Williams were close friends of Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, and they were watching his televised primary victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles upstairs in the senator\u2019s suite on June 4, 1968.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter Kennedy was shot shortly after midnight in the hotel by Sirhan Sirhan, the couple joined RFK\u2019s family and other friends at Good Samaritan Hospital, and they were there when he was pronounced dead on June 6, nearly 26 hours after the shooting.<\/p>\n \n\tLonget and Williams attended Kennedy\u2019s funeral at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in New York on June 8 \u2014 Williams and a choir performed \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic\u201d \u2014 and were on the funeral train that took his body to the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington for burial.<\/p>\n \n\tShe and charismatic Vladimir \u201cSpider\u201d Sabich, who was the model for Robert Redford<\/a>\u2019s character in Downhill Racer<\/em> (1969), first met in 1972 at a celebrity skiing exhibition in Bear Valley, California.<\/p>\n \n\tAt the time of the shooting, they had been living together for a couple of years but their relationship was on the rocks, as she wrote in her diary. (Since officers failed to attain a search warrant, that evidence was inadmissible in court.)<\/p>\n \n\tAfter her sentencing, Longet told reporters she was not bitter. \u201cBecause of the many cards and letters I\u2019ve received, the prayers, I feel very good about everybody,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \n\tHer case was spoofed on Saturday Night Live<\/em> in April 1976 when sportscasters played by Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin offered play-by-play of skiers being \u201caccidentally shot\u201d by Longet<\/a> while competing in \u201cThe Claudine Longet Invitational\u201d in Vail, Colorado. Announcer Don Pardo<\/a> would read an apology on the air the next week.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>