• The autopsy report for Storage Wars star Darrell Sheets, obtained by Us Weekly, shows his toxicology analysis came back completely negative
• Officials tested for benzodiazepines, cocaine, fentanyl, and other substances — none were found in his system
• The Mohave County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Sheets’ death a suicide
• His son Brandon shared a tribute on social media: “I love you Dad and I will do my best to live in your honor and respect our Family”

The autopsy report for Storage Wars star Darrell Sheets has been released, and it answers one of the questions that followed his death: there were no drugs in his system.

The report, obtained exclusively by Us Weekly, states that Sheets’ toxicology analysis came back negative. Officials tested samples of his blood for benzodiazepines, cocaine, fentanyl, and other substances — none were detected. The Mohave County Medical Examiner’s Office, which handled the examination, has ruled his death a suicide.

The report describes Sheets as “a well-developed, well-nourished adult male” and notes several tattoos — including a female figure, the number 58, a joker, and a checkered flag — though these were not relevant to the cause of death.

His son Brandon paid tribute to his father on social media after the news. “I love you Dad and I will do my best to live in your honor and respect our Family,” Brandon wrote. “Let’s all continue to build those memories.”

Sheets was one of the original cast members of Storage Wars, the A&E reality series that followed bidders competing at storage unit auctions. He appeared on the show for years and became one of its most recognizable personalities, known for his enthusiasm and his son Brandon’s involvement in the business alongside him.

If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by calling or texting 988.

The post Storage Wars’ Darrell Sheets Had No Drugs in His System, Autopsy Reveals appeared first on Cream.

• Michael Keating, British actor best known for BBC’s cult sci-fi series Blake’s 7, died on Thursday, May 21 at age 79.
• His agent Dan Ireson confirmed the death, saying Keating “passed away recently” — no further details were given.
• Keating played Vila Restal in all 52 episodes of Blake’s 7, making him the only cast member to appear in every single one.
• He also had a long run on EastEnders as Reverend George Stevens, appearing in 54 episodes between 2005 and 2017.
• Colleagues remembered him as a warm, gifted comic talent whose presence lit up every room he walked into.

Michael Keating, the British actor who became a cult television icon through his role as the roguish Vila Restal in the BBC space drama Blake’s 7, has died. He was 79.

His agent, Dan Ireson, confirmed the news on Thursday, May 21, saying Keating had “passed away recently.” No cause of death was given.

Born in Edmonton, England, Keating built his career the old-fashioned way — through years of stage work and small screen appearances that quietly laid the groundwork for what was coming. His first stage role came at Nottingham Playhouse under classical actor and artistic director John Neville, and from there he worked his way through theaters across the UK, including the Library Theatre Manchester, the Pitlochry Theatre, the Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, and the Lyric Theatre Belfast. He’d eventually perform with both the National Theatre and the Old Vic — a stage résumé most actors would spend a lifetime chasing.

On television, he made his mark through guest appearances on British series including Special Branch, Merry-Go-Round, Omnibus, The Dragon’s Opponent, and even a stint in the enduring sci-fi franchise Doctor Who before his big break arrived.

The Role That Made Him a Legend

In 1978, Keating landed the role that would define his career. Blake’s 7 — the BBC’s dystopian space opera about a ragtag band of rebels fighting a totalitarian regime that had seized control of Earth — gave him Vila Restal, a self-declared coward and career thief who was somehow impossible not to love. Keating himself, according to Big Finish Productions, preferred not to call Vila cowardly at all. The character was simply, in his words, “cautious.”

What made the performance truly remarkable was its consistency. Keating appeared in all 52 episodes across the show’s four series from 1978 to 1981 — the only cast member in the entire run who never missed a single one. That’s not a footnote. That’s a legacy.

In 1985, he also originated the role of Marty at the Phoenix Theatre in the West End in Alan Bleasdale’s play Are You Lonesome Tonight, a production about Elvis Presley in which Martin Shaw played the King.

A Second Chapter on the Square

Decades after Blake’s 7 wrapped, Keating found a whole new audience through EastEnders. From 2005 to 2017, he played Reverend George Stevens — the vicar of the fictional London borough of Walford — across 54 episodes. It was a quieter role than Vila, but a meaningful one. Stevens was a constant presence at the community’s biggest moments: christenings, weddings, funerals. The kind of character a soap opera needs to hold its emotional center.

And even that wasn’t the end of his connection to Blake’s 7. Through Big Finish Productions, Keating returned to Vila Restal behind the microphone, reprising the role across several audio drama series throughout the 2010s and into the early 2020s — Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles (2012–2016), Blake’s 7: The Classic Adventures (2013–2020), and The Worlds of Blake’s 7 (2021–2022). He reunited in the process with on-screen colleagues including Paul Darrow, Gareth Thomas, and Jacqueline Pearce. His final Big Finish credit, The Terra Nostra, was released in January 2022.

Big Finish Blake’s 7 producer Peter Anghelides remembered him with unmistakable warmth. “What a joy it was to work with Michael,” Anghelides said. “His cheery presence on studio days was always most welcome. I would sit at the back of the Audio Sorcery control room hooting with laughter at his comic timing in our recordings.”

Anghelides also shared a small, perfect story: during the recording of the first full-cast audio Warship, Keating jokingly suggested there should have been a planet named “Vere” after his old colleague, TV director and producer Vere Lorrimer. “So obviously I smuggled that idea into a later script,” Anghelides said, “much to Michael’s great delight.”

That’s the kind of man he was — someone whose warmth made its way into the work itself, one joke at a time.

The post Michael Keating, Star of ‘Blake’s 7,’ Dead at 79 appeared first on Cream.

• Claudine Longet, French-born singer, actress and ex-wife of Andy Williams, died at 84.
• Her nephew Bryan Longet confirmed the death on social media Thursday.
• Longet fatally shot Olympic skier Spider Sabich in 1976 and was convicted of misdemeanor negligent homicide.
• The case inspired an SNL sketch, a Rolling Stones song, and made her internationally infamous.
• After the trial, she married her defense attorney and largely disappeared from public life.

Claudine Longet — the French-born chanteuse, actress, and one-time fixture on Andy Williams’ arm who became one of the most notorious figures in 1970s pop culture after fatally shooting her Olympic skier boyfriend — has died. She was 84.

Her nephew Bryan Longet announced her passing Thursday on his Instagram story. “Even though she is no longer physically with us, her light, elegance, talent and kindness will continue to live on through the memories, music, photos and love she leaves behind,” he wrote. “As many of you know, Claudine was not only an icon to me — she was also my aunt, and someone incredibly special in my life. Since I was a little boy, I always told her that I would remain her number one fan, and that will never change.” In a separate post translated from French by the Los Angeles Times, he added: “You have been a true inspiration in my life and you will always be. Another star in the sky. Thank you for everything, my aunt.”

No other details about her death were shared.

From Paris to Las Vegas to the Living Rooms of America

Born in Paris on January 29, 1942, Claudine Georgette Longet was the daughter of a businessman specializing in X-ray technology and a doctor. She showed an early flair for performance — she was in a production of The Turn of the Screw at 10 years old — and went on to appear on French television and in plays in Milan and Venice. By the time she was 18, American nightclub impresario Lou Walters (yes, Barbara Walters’ father) spotted her dancing on French TV and brought her to Las Vegas to star in the Folies Bergère revue at the Tropicana.

It was there, in Sin City, that fate intervened in the most cinematic way. One evening, Longet’s car broke down on the side of a highway, and she and a girlfriend were pushing it when Andy Williams and his manager happened to drive by. “My manager and I were driving down there and we saw this lovely girl and her girlfriend, who was also quite pretty, pushing this car,” Williams later told CBS Sunday Morning. “And so, being gallant — and also because they looked pretty good — we stopped to see if we could help them.” Williams was smitten. He proposed to her in Paris — she’d gone back home, where her parents were concerned she was dating an older man — and the two wed at a church in Bel-Air on December 15, 1961. She was 19. He was 34.

The marriage launched Longet into American living rooms. Williams’ career exploded in 1962 with “Moon River,” and his eponymous NBC variety show became appointment television. Longet was a regular presence on it, and the family’s Christmas specials — featuring the whole clan, including their three children, daughter Noelle and sons Christian and Bobby — were ratings gold. The couple were also close friends with Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel. On June 4, 1968, Longet and Williams were watching Kennedy’s primary victory speech from his suite at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when shots rang out below. They joined the Kennedy family at Good Samaritan Hospital and were there when he was pronounced dead nearly 26 hours later. Their son Bobby was named in RFK’s honor.

Beyond the TV appearances, Longet built a genuine entertainment career of her own. She co-starred with Peter Sellers in Blake Edwards’ 1968 comedy The Party, singing the Henry Mancini–Don Black number “Nothing to Lose” in a scene that showcased her effortless, breathy charm. Her recording career — spanning seven studio albums from 1967 to 1972, five on A&M Records and two on Williams’ Barnaby imprint — found real success. Her 1967 debut album Claudine, produced by Tommy LiPuma, sold more than a million copies. She covered everyone from the Beatles (“Here, There and Everywhere,” “Good Day Sunshine”) to Randy Newman (“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today”), her girlish, lounge-pop vocals making even familiar songs feel like secrets whispered over candlelight.

By 1970 the marriage was fraying, and the couple separated. They divorced in 1975. “We just sort of grew apart, I was never home,” Williams said years later. “It was all my fault, I just didn’t take care of my marriage.”

The Shooting That Changed Everything

Longet had met Vladimir “Spider” Sabich — the charismatic World Cup ski champion who was the real-life inspiration for Robert Redford’s character in Downhill Racer — at a celebrity skiing exhibition in Bear Valley, California in 1972. There was an immediate attraction. After her divorce from Williams, she moved with her children into Sabich’s Starwood chalet in Aspen, Colorado.

On March 21, 1976, Longet shot Sabich in the abdomen with a .22-caliber German-made pistol that had belonged to his father. She told investigators she had found the gun and asked Sabich how to use it, that she pointed it at him and “jokingly said ‘bang, bang,'” believing the safety was on. A ballistics expert later confirmed the safety did not function. Her daughter Noelle, who was in the house, testified she heard Sabich cry out, “Claudine! Claudine!”

Sabich was 31 years old. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, with Longet by his side.

What followed was a media storm of a kind that feels almost quaint now but was absolutely consuming at the time. Reports surfaced that Sabich had been planning to ask Longet to move out. Her diary — which she had written in — and blood samples taken from her were thrown out as evidence because investigators had failed to obtain a search warrant. That legal misstep significantly hampered the prosecution.

Charged with felony reckless manslaughter and facing up to 10 years in prison, Longet went to trial in January 1977. Andy Williams — her ex-husband, the man whose career she’d shared for over a decade — escorted her to and from the Aspen courthouse every day and testified on her behalf. “I did because I thought it was unfair,” he said later. “I thought she was innocent. I thought it was an accident.”

On the stand, Longet spoke in her signature French accent about the relationship. “There were times over the four years that we would disagree,” she told the court. “There would be times he would be a little bit offended by the attention I got and I would be a little bit offended by the attention he got, but we were the best of friends and we loved each other very much.”

After four days of testimony and three and a half hours of deliberations, the jury acquitted Longet of the felony charge and convicted her of misdemeanor criminally negligent homicide. She was sentenced to two years’ probation, fined $250, and given 30 days in jail — which she was largely able to serve on weekends. Outside the courthouse, she faced reporters. “There is not really much to say,” she told them. “Only that I have too much respect for living things to do that. I’m not guilty.”

Sabich’s family filed a $1.3 million civil suit that was eventually settled out of court. As part of the settlement, Longet agreed never to speak publicly about Sabich or his death, and never to publish a book about the trial. Her entertainment career was effectively over.

The Cultural Aftermath

The case had already become a cultural flashpoint before the verdict was even read. In April 1976 — just weeks after the shooting — Saturday Night Live aired one of its most notorious early sketches: “The Claudine Longet Invitational,” in which Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin played sportscasters offering deadpan play-by-play as skiers were “accidentally shot” by Longet while racing down the slopes. “Uh-oh, he seems to have been accidentally shot by Claudine Longet,” Chase intoned over footage of wipeouts. The show’s producers read an on-air apology the following week after Longet’s lawyers made contact — announcer Don Pardo stating that “the satire was fictitious and its intent only humorous.”

The Rolling Stones went further. They recorded a brutal, ’50s-style rock and roll song called “Claudine” for their 1978 album Some Girls, but it was pulled — reportedly for legal reasons — and didn’t see official release until the album’s 2011 reissue. Mick Jagger sang: “You’re the prettiest girl I ever seen / I want to see you on the movie screen / I hope you never try to make a sacrifice of me, Claudine” and “Don’t get, don’t get trigger happy with me, Claudine.” The song also included the line: “Now only Spider knows for sure / But he ain’t talkin’ about it any more / Is he, Claudine?”

Whether it was a diss track or a dark tribute probably depended on how you felt about the verdict.

Life After the Trial

One of Longet’s defense attorneys, Ronald Austin, left his wife shortly after the trial concluded and moved in with her. The two married in June 1985 and settled in the Aspen area, later dividing their time between Colorado and Hawaii. In 2023, the couple listed their Red Mountain Ranch estate in Aspen for $60 million, according to Robb Report.

Longet’s last known public appearance came in 2003, when she contributed voiceover to an A&E Biography documentary on Andy Williams. “To this day people stop me in the street and say how much they loved the Christmas show,” she said — a quiet, nostalgic note from a woman who had spent decades guarding her silence.

She is survived by her husband Ronald Austin and her son Bobby. Her daughter Noelle reportedly died in 2023, and her son Christian predeceased her as well. Her nephew Bryan’s tribute said it simply: another star in the sky.

The post Claudine Longet, Who Shot Skier Spider Sabich, Dies at 84 appeared first on Cream.