Claudine Longet

Claudine Georgette Longet was a French-American singer, actress, and dancer whose breathy, lilting voice made her one of the most distinctive sounds of the late 1960s. Born in Paris on January 29, 1942, to a businessman and a doctor, she discovered performing at an early age — by age ten she was appearing in theater productions, including a role in The Turn of the Screw, and went on to perform in plays in Milan and Venice, as well as on French television. At eighteen, she packed her life into a suitcase and moved to Las Vegas, where she became the lead dancer of the celebrated Folies Bergère revue at the Tropicana Resort and Casino. It was in Las Vegas that she met American singer Andy Williams — a chance encounter when he stopped to help her push her broken-down car along a highway. They married on December 15, 1961, in Bel-Air, and together raised three children: Noelle, Christian, and Bobby, the youngest named in honor of their close friend Robert F. Kennedy. Claudine was a fixture on The Andy Williams Show throughout the 1960s, and her television work expanded to guest appearances on McHale's Navy, Combat!, Hogan's Heroes, and other popular series. Her recording career flourished after she signed with A&M Records in 1966. Her 1967 debut album, Claudine, became a gold-certified record selling over one million copies and reached number eleven on the Billboard pop albums chart. Successive releases — The Look of Love, Love Is Blue, and others — kept her on the charts and cemented her reputation for translating bossa nova and pop standards into something uniquely, softly her own. In 1968, she sang "Nothing to Lose" in Blake Edwards' acclaimed comedy The Party alongside Peter Sellers. Andy Williams once described her as "a beautiful, athletic, slender, petite brunette with large doe eyes — my favorite French singer." The 1970s brought profound upheaval. She and Williams separated around 1970 and divorced in January 1975. She relocated to Aspen, Colorado, where life took a tragic turn in March 1976. After a trial that gripped the country, her entertainment career came to a close. She eventually married Ronald D. Austin in June 1985 and built a quiet life on their Aspen estate, far from the spotlight. Claudine Longet passed away on May 14, 2026, at the age of 84. She is remembered for the warmth and elegance she brought to every performance, and for the enduring charm of recordings that still find new listeners decades after they were made.