WHAT BURT REYNOLDS DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT DINAH SHORE: Dinah and the “ Smokey and the Bandit” star raised eyebrows in the 1970s when they launched a steamy romance even though Burt was 19 years her junior.
Years earlier the FBI kept tabs on Dinah due to her association with several Chicago mobsters.
According to her FBI file, the feds received information in 1961 that “a well-known attorney of racketeers” handled her contract.
That same year, she reportedly associated with the wife of a “Chicago hoodlum,” and the FBI suggested a Chicago “underworld leader ” had an “interest of percentage” in her career earnings.
No action was taken on the claims.
The names in her file are redacted, but Dinah was close to powerful Chicago attorney Sidney Korshak, who was known as a shadowy advisor to Hollywood stars and organized crime figures.
WHITNEY HOUSTON GAY EXTORTION PLOT!: An extortion plot threatened to reveal doomed diva Whitney Houston’s lesbian relationship with an unidentified woman, according to the late singer’s 128-page file.
The FBI began to investigate after Whitney received a letter from a lawyer representing an unidentified woman who threatened to “reveal certain details” about Whitney’s “romantic relationships” unless she paid $100,000.
The blackmailers then upped the ante to $250,000, and offered a confidentiality agreement, according to the documents.
The investigation stopped when Whitney paid an undisclosed amount.
Before her 2012 death, Whitney was long dogged by rumors that she was intimately involved with close childhood pal Robyn Crawford.
KENTUCKY FRIED MURDER PLOT FOR COL. SANDERS!: The founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken was the apparent target of a half-baked assassination plot!
FBI files reveal that feds briefly guarded Harland “Colonel” Sanders in 1974 after a handwritten note warned that he was “in grave danger of being murdered.”
SONNY’S SECRET WEAPONS CACHE!: Fresh off his 1975 divorce from Cher, Sonny Bono was investigated over his secret cache of high-powered weapons, according to federal documents.
The FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms set their sights on Sonny when a former associate ratted him out after a verbal dispute.
“After having a fight with Sonny, he wished to advise that in the basement of the Bono residence are two machine guns, an AK-47 and a M60,” according to documents dated Oct. 1976.
At the time, Sonny told the feds he needed the arsenal for protection, which turned out to be prophetic.
In 1994, as a maverick Southern California congressman, he was targeted by a ruthless drugdealing Russian mob invading his district.
Sonny played a large role in the government’s war on drugs, and the gang’s attempts to bribe him were unsuccessful, according to federal documents.
After learning informants were feeding him evidence against them, the gangsters put out a contract on Sonny’s life, the documents show.
Sonny died after skiing into a tree at a Lake Tahoe resort on Jan. 5, 1998.
Some people, including his mother, Jean, believed he was being chased by a hit squad.
LUCY’S COMMIE CONNECTION!: Beloved star Lucille Ball was targeted for her suspected connection with the Communist Party, files show.
The flame-haired TV legend popped up on the 1953 House Un-American Activities Committee radar when it was revealed she registered to vote as a Communist in 1936 at the urging of her politically left-leaning grandfather.
The documents read: “Ball stated she has never been a member of the Communist Party.”
When the investigation led nowhere, the feds set their sights on her Cubanborn hubby, Desi Arnaz, who according to an FBI snitch was “a card-carrying member of the Cuban Communist Party.”
That ended when the feds lea rned Desi fled Cuba in 1933 following a coup, documents revealed.
CLARK GABLE’S HOOKER ADDICTION: The King of Hollywood Clark Gable harbored a secret fondness for prostitutes, and his file revealed the habit led to a number of extortion attempts.
In the most notorious incident, the feds intercepted a letter on Oct. 1937 from a “sophisticated” female who threatened to reveal his dark past if he didn’t help jump-start her acting career, documents show.
The feds traced the blackmail letter to a hooker in Clark’s native Ohio who wanted to meet a producer.
No charges were filed.
The extortion threats became so common a MGM studio secretary who read Clark’s fan mail was instructed to forward all suspicious letters to the authorities.
