FIRST OFF . . .

The FBI won the friendship of the late Jackie Gleason in the 1950s and recruited him as a special contact with hopes of using him in possible investigations of his acquaintances, the Washington Times reported. According to the newspaper, FBI files show the agency won Gleason’s friendship in 1956 when an agent helped locate Gleason’s father, Herbert, who had disappeared when Jackie was 9. Then, in 1974, Gleason was approved as a contact and added to the FBI’s mailing list for Christmas cards and the Law Enforcement Bulletin. The FBI file, however, doesn’t say if Gleason followed through on locating his father, nor if the FBI ever pumped him for information. The file also shows that the FBI was irked by the script for a “Skidoo,” a 1968 Gleason movie, because of a scene in which Gleason, playing a retired criminal, steals a filing cabinet from an FBI building while agents shoot at him. Gleason died in June at the age of 71.