FIRST OFF . . .

Bette Davis’ hometown of Lowell, Mass., is planning to erect a memorial to the Oscar-winning actress who died last week in Paris at the age of 81. “We’re very proud of the fact that Miss Davis was born and brought up in Lowell and we plan to come up with an appropriate memorial to her,” City Manager James Campbell said Wednesday. Davis was born in 1908 in a house on Chestnut Street, adjacent to downtown, in what is known as the city’s Lower Belvedere section. Campbell said that a committee will seek input from Davis’ family and from her Hollywood contemporaries as to an appropriate memorial. The design phase is expected to take six months. Last year, Kerouac Park opened in Lowell as a tribute to another famous former resident, Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The park includes granite slabs engraved with some of Kerouac’s most famous passages.