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.

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