Birthday Fare for Beverly Hills: It’s the Richest Kind

What nearly 75-year-old celebrity throws a birthday party with one 1 1/2-ton birthday cake for eating and another, frosted with 2,500 diamonds, for show--and then stages a “tribute to shopping” featuring Robin Leach?

Well, the answer is Beverly Hills itself, probably one of the few 75-year-olds in the city of glitter willing to advertise its age.

Actors Jimmy Stewart, Cesar Romero and Robert Stack were among those who showed up for the festivities Sunday. But it was Leach, the chronicler of the “Life Styles of the Rich and Famous,” who put the focus on the activity closest to the city’s heart: spending money.

This is a city, remember, where the average income is $125,000, with more Rolls Royces per capita, they say, than in London. And a town so rich even the high school has oil wells.

“We didn’t want to just have a little birthday party and blow out the candles on a store-bought cake,” said George W. Fenimore, chairman of the Beverly Hills Visitors Bureau. “No way. Not in Beverly Hills.”

So the Four Seasons Hotel built a nine-foot cake, designed to look like Beverly Hills’ City Hall. It was dished out to thousands at Roxbury Park.

Then, more than 1,100 performers gathered at the Beverly Hills High School Stadium to stage a “Diamond Jubilee Musical Extravaganza.” There, jeweler Harry Winston had his own cake, with more than 2,500 diamonds on it.

“It’s like a real cake,” said Winston official Count Enrico Carimati, running his fingers along the jewels. Asked how much the diamonds are worth, he said, “Today, $20 million. Tomorrow, I don’t know.”

Celebrities, including Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Dinah Shore and Romero, gathered beforehand to examine the cake. Asked what Beverly Hills means to him, Zimbalist answered: “I don’t live in Beverly Hills.”

The day’s events, he added, “epitomized P.T. Barnum.”

Leach, who was wearing a mink coat from a Rodeo Drive furrier, allowed as how he doesn’t live in Beverly Hills either. But the city, he noted, is the kind of place “where someone from London can call and get fingernail polish that matches the color of her Rolls Royce.”

“Hang on to your credit cards!” he instructed a packed stadium as his tribute to shopping began, featuring dancers prancing about against a backdrop showing a video presentation of the city’s strorefronts.

The 60-minute show, ending with fireworks, was a salute to the city, which was incorporated in 1914--two years after a developer named Burton Green decided to build a pink and green hostelry on a lima bean field. He called it the Beverly Hills Hotel, and it was soon followed by mansions, millionaires and movie stars.

Beverly Hills is not quite 75 yet--and the birthday party did not end with Sunday’s events. They merely kicked off a $1.7-million, 14-month-long celebration designed, in large part, to promote tourism.

The celebration is scheduled to conclude with “The World’s Largest Fashion Show,” in which more than 1,000 models will use Rodeo Drive as their runway.

American Airlines, Cadillac and the Beverly Hills Hotel are the three primary corporate sponsors of Beverly Hills’ birthday party.

There also is an “official soft drink,” “official champagne,” “official ice cream,” and, to pay for it all, an “official credit card,” American Express.

The thousands of people attending the events Sunday got one birthday present from the city.

Beverly Hills authorities, known for their rigorous enforcement of parking regulations, refrained from issuing tickets “unless the offense was really flagrant,” police said.

Under the one-day policy, “officers were instructed to relax and show a broad discretion,” said Sgt. Bob Smith.