From
the Sunday Times Travel Magazine
Come on down ladies and gentlemen – your wheelchairs are ready and waiting for
you down the front of the plane. Welcome to Palm Springs.’ This was the
cheery reception from our flight attendant as we taxied into Palm Springs
International.
The age of my fellow passengers hadn’t escaped me – there’d been a moment when
turbulence hit over Phoenix and all I could see was a wave of juddering
silver heads, like nodding dogs in wigs. And when the crew seated me in the
emergency exit aisle, it didn’t go unnoticed that I was the only person on
board fit and able to remove the door in case of an emergency.
But they were the sassiest, sprightliest plane-load of pensioners you could
hope to meet. Max and Mindy, my neighbours, were off to play golf at an
exclusive country club for the weekend, while the gaggle of grey girlfriends
in row 32 were here to camp under the stars at Joshua Tree National Park.
In Palm Springs, where the sun always shines and folks always smile, age means
nothing. Despite being at least 35 years younger, I was in Palm Springs for
the same reason they were: a sunny dose of retro glamour.
This is the kind of town where you can sleep in the house that hosted
Sinatra’s legendary cocktail parties, and rent the home where Elvis wed
Priscilla. This is the original ‘Playground of the Stars’ – not the gimmicky
name magazines apply to any flash resort these days, but the real thing.
Mid-century Modernist homes – furnished exactly as they were 50 years ago –
are available for rent, or you can check into one of the original motels
beloved of Marilyn and Bing, complete with kidney-shaped swimming pool and
pink flamingos. And in a world where ‘cool’ travel now translates strictly
to unfriendly, urban boutique hotels (snooty staff and sharp corners), I
quite fancied a different, sunnier type of cool enjoyed by a friendlier,
sunnier type of traveller.
Different and sunny. Palm Springs is definitely that. Downtown, which sprouts
left and right of Palm Canyon Drive and Indian Canyon Drive, is where it all
happens – albeit very slowly. The pavements shimmered in the sunshine, while
blue Beetles and silver BMWs cruised at snail’s pace, air-con whirring.
Tanned boys filled the tables at Koffi, sharing stories of the night before at
Toucans (the town’s most popular gay club) or Tool Shed (for the very
brave), while an elderly lady dropped off the latest Mills & Boon at
Palm Springs Library. Then minor local celebrity Stephan ambled past: a man,
I later learned, who was a lifelong fan of Liberace. He’d bought the great
entertainer’s home after he died – along with everything in it, and now
wanders the streets wearing his outfits.
Palm Springs hit the big time in the 1930s and ‘40s when stars such as Clark
Gable and Greta Garbo fled to the decadent desert resort from Los Angeles.
They were ‘contract players’, signed up to a Hollywood studio that could
call on them at a moment’s notice. This tight leash meant actors were never
allowed to disappear more than two hours’ drive from the city, and thus Palm
Springs – one hour and 53 minutes from LA – boomed.
Pleasure palaces were built, golf courses laid and parties thrown (Bob Hope
built his ‘Flying Saucer’ house purely for his shindigs, with two bedrooms,
27 bathrooms and a pool in the shape of his profile). Now, after the 1980s
dip in the economy, the town has put its dancing shoes back on and is
appealing to a new generation of actors, including Brad Pitt and George
Clooney, with its contemporary luxury retro backdrop.
I checked into Ballantines Hotel, a renovated 1935 motel, where Marilyn Monroe
used to stay. Betty, the mischievous receptionist with curls and cats-eye
spectacles (who looked like the Bewitched actress aged 60) showed me to my
room, explaining that Barb worked evenings and Bobby would serve breakfast.
How fabulous, I thought, to have a team of staff – ‘Betty, Bobby and Barb’ –
that just happened to sound like a dance troupe on The Ed Sullivan Show.
