On the FBI's team, they had Who's on first, What's on second, but They Didn't Know if legendary comic wordplayers Bud Abbott and Lou Costello also liked to play with porn films.
J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men certainly did want to know, though, according to files freshly released. The irony was that Hoover was a fan of the team - the files include a fan letter he'd written to express admiration for a clever word skit they performed about the FBI.
The Abbott and Costello files are smaller than that of baseball legend Mickey Mantle, whom the FBI probed involving whether he had a taste for prostitutes amidst his reported and admitted womanizing. The 14-page Abbott and Costello files indicate mostly that the bureau wanted to know whether pornographic movies were among the pair's interests offscreen and off the air.
The FBI had probed an alleged obscene film operation ring in Hollywood in the mid-1940s, according to the files. The G-men apparently found that among the ring's alleged regulars were Lou Costello, fellow comedian Red Skelton, and actor George Raft - the latter especially renowned for various unsavory associations which ultimately destroyed his career.
The file includes a comment from one informant suggesting Costello had porn films "running out of his ears," among many which amused Costello's daughter, Chris. She told APBNews her family did have one of Hollywood's largest film collections, but, "(l)arge library of obscene films - now, this one got me laughing." The large Costello library, she said, actually included Abbott and Costello's own films and a huge collection of a Lou Costello passion: B-westerns.
"I can tell you right now, when everything was removed from that house, there were no obscene films," she told the crime news service. "I don't know where they got that, but that is bunk, bunk, bunk," she said.
That didn't stop the FBI from trying to find out whether either Bud Abbott or his malapropping, derby-wearing partner kept a collection of what used to be called "stag films." The Los Angeles Police Department, for example, tipped the bureau off in 1958 to the possibility that Abbott - the tall, mustachioed schemer of the comedy team - might have a collection of at least 1,500 porn films, according to the FBI files.
The FBI even went far enough to look into whether Abbott had anything to do with interstate porn shipments, according to the file, but the bureau ultimately ruled that, whatever the collection was, it was for private consumption. The file doesn't say whether anything else ever came of the allegations.
The G-men also probed whether Costello was the recipient of a "lewd performance" by two prostitutes, checking into whether two women, paid $50 each by an unidentified man, had performed for the comedian.
Whatever their real or alleged interest in porn, Lou Costello seems to have had at least a social interest in another area of federal interest - the mob. The FBI files indicated the bureau wondering whether Costello tried to use mob connections to get even with people he suspected of hitting on his wife. His daughter, though, says Costello knew various mobsters only socially - including New Jersey crime boss Joe Bozzo, who was her godfather.
In fact, Costello grew up in New Jersey with Mafia legend Frank Costello, a friend of the comedian's. The humorist famous for his inability to understand a St. Louis first baseman named "Who" and the Mafioso who survived a botched hit by the Genovese crime family in the mid-1950s were not otherwise related.
Abbott and Costello first teamed up in 1936, going on to become beloved radio, film, and television stars - and immortalized by their "Who's On First" baseball routine, They split in 1958. Lou Costello died in 1959; Bud Abbott, after appearing in small television and film roles in the following years, died in 1974. Their films and old television shows continue to attract viewers and collectors.
