A Street Named Merideth

It was an extraordinary weekend. In Pasadena, while millions watched, the television industry honored itself with Emmys. And in Malibu, 43 gathered to name a driveway after Burgess Merideth. I mean Meredith.

The events were in no way related, except by our tendency to elevate those in show biz to the status of sainthood. And while a driveway to a shopping center doesn’t compare to an airport or a hospital wing, it’s better than what most of us get.

Come to think of it, I guess there were certain similarities in the Pasadena and Malibu ceremonies. The same gestures and superlatives abounded in both places.

There were enough hugs and kisses at the two events to seduce a nun, and whatever adjectives of adoration remained unused after the ceremonies weren’t worth using in the first place.

We heard 86-year-old Meredith described as loving, kind, warm, gifted, generous, charming, witty, gracious and even intelligent, although intelligent wasn’t granted the same emphasis as, say, charming.

Jack Lemmon and Carroll O’Connor sent messages of regret for not being in attendance. Fortunately, however, the ex-wife of a former friend of a dead actor named Franchot Tone, who had been a pal of Meredith, did attend, and she remarked on Meredith’s fine sense of humor.

He needed it on this particular day because after he was showered with enough sweetness to cause hyperglycemia, they presented him with a plaque that spelled his name wrong. It said Merideth instead of Meredith.

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It was an honest mistake and did not detract from the almost messianic nature of the moment. Gene Wood, a former television game show host who arranged for the driveway-naming, swore he had double-checked the spelling, but those things happen.

I had a byline in the Oakland Tribune once that identified me as “Al Fartinez,” and it has followed me for an entire career. By comparison, Merideth isn’t so bad after all.

His name was spelled correctly, by the way, on the street sign that identified the driveway as Burgess Meredith Way, to the enthusiastic applause of the 43 people in attendance. The plaque, which will be remade, is intended to be set in concrete in front of the Malibu Theater.

I was there because the whole thing was so, well, Malibuish. The mayor, Jeff Kramer, who is pretty enough to be a movie star, attended in shorts and sneakers, which is de rigueur in Malibu. I haven’t seen so many white sneakers in one place since the 1984 Olympics.

Meredith was honored not only because he’s a terrific actor, but because he was a leader in the fight for Malibu’s cityhood. And because, I guess, he’s old. We like to honor the elderly before they slip out of sight.

I’m not making fun of that. It’s a good idea. A free-lancer I knew once wrote what almost amounted to an obituary for a crusty old female journalist whom everyone thought was dying. As it turned out, she didn’t die, but he did, which is the way things sometimes happen. The laugh was on him.

Not everyone, I’m sorry to say, knew who Meredith is. A grungy-looking guy in his 20s who could have been either a bum or a surfer wanted to know what was going on. I said it was a ceremony honoring Burgess Meredith.

He said, so help me, “What’s a burger merafish?” I said it was a Malibu cheeseburger in which they replaced beef with a healthful ground salmon. He said, “Far out,” and left.

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Before you get all indignant over what appears to be my mocking attitude toward a loving ceremony, let me say that Burgess Meredith is one of my favorite actors, Malibu is one of my favorite towns, and Guido’s is one of my favorite restaurants.

I mention Guido’s because it is in the same shopping center and because a strange event occurred there the other night when my wife, Cinelli, and I were having dinner. A man and woman in the next booth were engaged in passionate embraces and he was licking the side of her face.

I’ve seen a lot of passion over the years, but I can’t recall ever having seen anyone lick his partner’s face in public. Perhaps that’s a gesture of affection practiced only in Malibu, the way they rub noses in certain northern cultures.

None of that went on at the event honoring Merideth, I mean Meredith, but it could have. I’ve never seen such an outpouring of affection. As Faye Dunaway might have put it, “This town has heart.”

A harpist played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at the end of the ceremony, which gave it all a kind of ethereal quality. I was so impressed, I stayed longer than I should have and was late for a dinner date.

It irritated Cinelli a little, but I licked her face later and she forgave me.