FIRST OFF . . .

Actress Mercedes McCambridge will be getting a sad inheritance. Her son John Markle, who killed his wife, their two daughters and then himself at their home in Little Rock, Ark., last month, left his mother $500,000. A letter from Markle to his mother and a notebook containing his final thoughts were ordered sealed temporarily last week after McCambridge asked the court to keep the records from becoming public. Markle’s handwritten will was dated one week before the killings and five days before he was fired from an investment banking firm.