CELEBRITY WATCH
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April 19, 2000
Web posted at: 4:54 p.m. EST (2054 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

Today's buzz stories:

• Collins wins royalties battle
• Rex Reed, be good
• Dead Kennedys headed for court
• No boy toy: Madonna's having a son

Collins wins royalties battle

Collins

LONDON -- A judge has ruled that Phil Collins is entitled to $192,600 overpaid to two backup musicians who played with him on a 1990 concert tour. But it's unlikely Collins will receive any direct payment of funds from the ruling.

Collins' company, Phil Collins Ltd., had argued that Rahmlee Davis and Louis Satterfield -- two members of the band Earth, Wind and Fire when they weren't playing for Collins -- had been overpaid royalties to the tune of $385,000. The payments came from the "Serious Hits Live" album, which Collins recorded during the nine-month tour.

Under the deal between Collins and the musicians, Davis and Satterfield had only been entitled to royalties for five tracks on the record, said the judge -- not the 15 tracks for which they had received money.

But Collins was only entitled to half the overpaid royalties, the judge continued. Collins had agreed that any money recovered in the legal battle would be applied against future royalty payments, meaning he's unlikely to see any direct payments.

Rex Reed, be good

NEW YORK-- If Rex Reed can stay out of trouble for the next six months, he's off the hook. That ruling came from a Manhattan judge on Tuesday.

The 61-year-old film critic was arrested in February after he allegedly tried to steal three compact discs from a record store. A store security officer told police he witnessed Reed shoplift CDs by Mel Torme, Peggy Lee and Carmen McRae.

Reed, a columnist for the New York Observer, denied the allegations but said he'd abide by the ruling from Judge Suzanne Mondo, who agreed to dismiss the charges and seal the record if Reed is not arrested again within the next six months.

"I'm very happy," Reed said after the ruling. "From now on I'm going to write nothing but good reviews."

Dead Kennedys headed for court

Dead Kennedys

SAN FRANCISCO -- Former members of the Dead Kennedys are facing off in court.

Guitarist East Bay Ray, bassist Klaus Fluoride and drummer D.H. Peligro claim that Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the band, has been hoarding the profits from their records and using them to support his new career as a sometime politician and spoken-word artist. They claim Biafra has dipped into hundreds of thousands of dollars to which they also are entitled.

Biafra says his former bandmates have been on the attack ever since he refused to sell the rights to the song "Holiday in Cambodia" to Levi's for a television commercial.

The trial's jury selection is taking place this week, and a spokeswoman for Biafra's record label said arguments were scheduled to start Monday in San Francisco Superior Court.

The Dead Kennedys broke up in 1986. They were know for their hard-core songs like "Kill the Poor," "Religious Vomit" and "California Uber Alles."

No boy toy: Madonna's having a son

Madonna

LONDON -- Madonna's 3-year-old daughter Lourdes will be playing with a little brother soon. That's the news from Britain's Sun.

The pregnant pop star found out through a prenatal exam that she's giving birth to a boy, the tabloid reported Wednesday. She's reportedly "delighted" by the news, according to the paper.

The expected child would be the second for Madonna, who is three months pregnant by director Guy Ritchie. Lourdes is Madonna's daughter through her relationship with former personal trainer Carlos Leon.

She and Leon never married, but Madonna's not ruling out a trip down the aisle with Ritchie.