I met Fontella Bass in 2001 at the Rhythm and Blues Foundation dinner that year. The great singer of “Rescue Me,” a song she co-wrote, and is played on the radio constantly, told me this: “I wrote Rescue Me,” she said, “but the producers I was working with never put my name on it. When I asked them about it, they said, Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.”

I wrote then: Nearly 35 years later, Bass has never seen a penny in publishing royalties from the much-recorded, bestselling song. She was so disheartened from the experience, she told me, that she left the United States for several years and made a career in Europe.

Fontella Bass died Wednesday in St. Louis. She was 72. Was she cheated by Chess Records and a lot of other people? Yes. And if there were a Performance Rights Act, she would have been paid each and every time “Rescue Me” was and is played on oldies radio. Instead, Fontella Bass goes to the grave having made radio chain owners and record company executives rich, rich, rich.

You can watch her now in our video player on the home page. RIP, Fontella. Your voice will always be heard.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2253825/Rescue-Me-soul-singer-Fontella-Bass-dies-72-suffering-heart-attack.html

People–my friends, family, etc– often ask me, What are these celebrities really like? Are they crazy? And I say, no no, there are really great ones. One of the ones I really like is Kate Winslet. She’s tremendously talented and so level headed. She raises her kids in nearby Chelsea, and all the schoolkids’ friends come to all of her premieres and opening nights.

So now I can report that Winslet, who is 37 and an Oscar winner, has married for the third time. This ’round it’s someone named Ned Rocknroll, and he’s 34. That’s his legal name, although he was born Abel Smith, and he’s the nephew of billionaire adventurer Richard Branson.

According to People and other outlets, it was a secret ceremony that neither Winslet’s parents nor the groom’s knew about. Leonardo DiCaprio, twice her co-star in films, gave her away. In real life, Winslet has two children, one by ex husband Sam Mendes, director of “American Beauty” and “Skyfall.” Those children will have such great material with which to write memoirs. I hope they are taking notes.

You can look at this a couple of ways. It sounds nuts, right? But she married into a really rich family. Also, if you’re famous and beautiful and have an Oscar, you might as well live it up, right? Elizabeth Taylor didn’t stick around Chelsea going to PTA meetings in her thirties. Life is for living.

For more info on Mr. Rocknroll, here’s a great interview with his previous wife, whom he married in 2009 when she was 21.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2052300/Eliza-Pearson-Hearing-Ned-Rocknroll-dating-Kate-Winslet-painful.html

Why did Mr. Smith change his name? Said his ex: “It was hysterical. We had discussed him doing this many times before, but I wasn’t sure whether he’d do it. The whole thing was about having fun with your name. He thought we all took ourselves too seriously so it was about reacting against it. He looked into just being ‘Ned’, with no surname at all but, apparently, that’s illegal so we couldn’t do it.”

Ned also worked for his uncle briefly as head of head of ‘astronaut relations and marketing.’ Said the ex: “He made that title up himself and it’s on his business cards…The job didn’t impress me. But his passion was incredible, and it really drew me to him. ‘He would say to me, there is no destination. The destination is now, now, now. The journey is the destination. We’re not trying to get somewhere. And that’s a really valuable lesson.’”

Meet Cynthia Jorge. Last April she was an assistant manager at some place called Benjamin Steakhouse on East 41st St. Today she’s on the cover of supermarket tabloid “Life & Style” for her “wild nights” with Tom Cruise. America is a dream come true! Cynthia was profiled on a website called JoonBug last April http://joonbug.com/national/firstcourse/Behind-the-Plate-with-Benjamin-Steakhouses-Cynthia-Jorge/H6hv6UxUFEL.

Not a trendy place. So now Cynthia’a at the very loud and buzzy Beauty and Essex on the Lower East Side. She’s not a waitress, kids. She’s a trained p.r. girl, with a degree in the subject. And that’s how she made it onto Page Six today after Tom Cruise “tracked her down” to dance with her at another nightclub.

The cynic here must raise an arched eyebrow. Our “Jack Reacher” star needs to dance with somebody; Cynthia sees an opportunity. He’s 50, she’s 26, and the numbers add up.

The next Mrs. Cruise? Why not? Read that Joonug piece: Cynthia was a vegetarian for 10 years before going to work for the steak house. She’s extremely adaptable.

Also, Cynthia wrote in 2007 on LinkedIn: “A former nightlife promoter, I am extremely outgoing, agile and comfortable in stressful situations.”