Claudine Longet

LORELAI: Who the hell is that anyways?
RORY: Claudine Longet.
LORELAI: The chick who shot the skier?
RORY: Uh, sure, why not.
LORELAI: Wow – Renaissance woman.

Claudine Longet (born 1942) is a French singer, dancer, and actress who was popular during the 1960s and ’70s. In 1976 she was arrested and charged with fatally shooting her boyfriend, the American Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich in Aspen, Colorado. She claimed that the gun had discharged accidentally while Sabich was showing her how it worked.

Although the Aspen police gained evidence that Longet had cocaine in her system, and that her relationship with Sabich had become unhappy, they made procedural errors which meant that their evidence could not be used in court. Prosecutors noted that the autopsy report showed that Sabich had been bent over, facing away, and at least six feet (1.8 m) from Longet, which isn’t the usual position you take when showing someone how to handle a gun.

The jury convicted her of negligent homicide, and she was sentenced to pay a small fine and to spend thirty days in gaol in the manner of her own choosing. She chose to serve her sentence as weekend detention, and attracted public censure for going on holiday with her married defense attorney; they eventually married and still live in Aspen.

Longet was sued by the Sabich family, and the case was settled out of court. The conviction essentially ended Longet’s career, and she has lived out of the public eye ever since.