Manson & Gleason

The Smoking Gun is serving two entrees today. Take your pick (or try both):

Click here for excerpts from the lawsuit filed against Marilyn Manson by Spin magazine's executive editor. Craig Marks alleges that Manson's bodyguards throttled him after a November concert in New York City (4 pages)

Here you'll find three FBI memos on Jackie Gleason. Seems that the bureau secretly helped the "Honeymooners" star in his quest to locate his absentee father. In 1925, Herbert Gleason abandoned his family when Jackie was only 8 years old. 30 years later, an FBI clerk picked up Herbert's trail after reading about how the entertainer was searching for his AWOL pappy. After tipping off Gleason, an FBI official noted in a 1956 memo (pages 5-6) that "some good may come of this in the future, in the event the Bureau needs Gleason's services for any reason." By 1974, as the second document in this series shows, Gleason was approved as an official "contact" for the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the FBI's Miami office. What Gleason did in this capacity, well, the G-men keep that sort of information strictly confidential. (6 pages)