Palm Springs history: Barbara Foster rubbed elbows with a dizzying array of stars

When asked during an interview for Palm Springs Life magazine what she’d like inscribed on her tombstone, Barbara Foster didn’t hesitate to answer: “She had her nose in everything!” And indeed, she did.

That Barbara was enthusiastic is a wild understatement. She shimmered and sparkled working for her many causes and myriad involvements. Her passing a few weeks ago marks the end of an era for the small village sprinkled with glitter from Tinseltown itself.

In tow at age 15 as her father moved the family to the desert for a job as a trainer with the Air Transport Command during World War II, Barbara flourished in the desert. Moving to California from Colorado seemed glamorous and Barbara was not disappointed.

Palm Springs Life chronicled, “Landing in the Coachella Valley in 1941 with a pair of ice skates, her dream to meet movie stars came true on her first day in town when she and her father arrived at the Del Tahquitz hotel, where a banner proclaimed, ‘Welcome MGM.’ In the lobby, she found Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, who were in town to film Girl Crazy. Silent film actor (and Racquet Club owner) Charlie Farrell happened in and struck up a conversation with Barbara’s father, after which the two became fast friends. The next day, she joined a group from the Racquet Club on a horseback ride where she met Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and her idol, Clark Gable. The starry-eyed teen had struck Hollywood’s mother lode.”

Working at Desmond’s Department Store while in high school would also prove a boon. One afternoon when Barbara was 16 years old, a disheveled man “drove up in an old Ford, (wearing) a felt hat” and a bathing suit but no shoes. The wary shopgirls huddled and sent Barbara to take care of the unkempt customer while feigning being busy.  With her best professional air, Barbara asked how she might help, to which the uncombed man responded, “Listen, what size are you? What do you like in the store?” Barbara answered about her diminutive size and began to expound on the marvelous merchandise available at Desmond’s, taking out her little sales pad.

“Let’s start with bathing suits. What bathing suits do you like?” Playing along, but suspecting the man was intoxicated or insane, she began writing up the sale. Three of those, four of that, he pointed as she followed him around the store. Two hours later, her pad was exhausted. It detailed thousands of dollars of merchandise, more than Barbara could add. The cashier was concerned too. Perhaps it was a hoax.

But the rumpled patron turned out to be Howard Hughes and the commission Foster earned on the sale was more than her father’s salary that month. Thereafter, “every time Howard Hughes came to town, and I was still working at Desmond’s, he would ask me to pick out things I liked, in bathing suits, and you know beach wear and all that kind of stuff and deliver to his house over in Old Las Palmas, which was full of movie stars. I mean, it was unbelievable. So, I met a lot of movie people ….”

More importantly, she met her future husband at Palm Springs High School. Bill Foster was a second-generation builder in Palm Springs and he inherited a roster of celebrity clients. Foster’s father built the Tennis Club and the Orchid Tree Inn and a rash of houses at Smoke Tree Ranch.  That pedigree, and Barbara’s penchant for putting her nose in everything, would result in her meeting Hollywood royalty, Walt Disney.

She’d answered the phone at home and a voice said, “’This is Walt Disney. How are you?’ I said, ‘I’m fine.’ But I thought it was our rabbi (Joe Hurwitz). He was very good with voices and he was a big jokester…he was forever playing tricks, especially on the phone. So I said, ‘How are you, Mr. Disney, blah blah blah.’ I am kind of being smart aleck and he said, ‘Is Bill there?... I want him to build our house, Lillian and I, finally got the lot at Smoke Tree and we want to thank him for it and we have a plan….” Barbara gulped and stopped fooling around.

Foster would build the house for the Disneys and the couples would carry on a long friendship. When the house was finished Disney threw a party for all the workers. Barbara recalled, “Well, I’ll never forget what a fun party that was. And so, when it came time to pay the bill, and I don’t even remember what the house cost, Walt said, ‘I don’t know how to ask you kids about this, because I know you’re just starting in business, but could you take Disney stock for part payment?’”

“Well Bill looked at me and I looked at him, and you know, no one was buying Disney stock and the deal wasn’t set with Anaheim. So came home to our little house on Riverside Drive and we talked about it and talked about it and I said, ‘Bill, I just think you take the stock.’ So we took the stock, which of course, as it developed made many, many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars and it was a real thrill of a lifetime….”

Her husband’s connections would also lead to her meeting President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty. Barbara and Betty would become involved in numerous philanthropic, political and civic causes in the valley after Foster built the Ford home, despite Foster trying to reign in his nosy wife.

Barbara’s hijinks in the desert are legendary. Interestingly, she was an ardent ice skater since arriving with her skates at age 15 and continuing until the age of 75, (often alongside Truman Capote, another celebrity friend.) Ice skating in the desert seems unlikely and unusual. It is a fitting metaphor for Barbara: effervescent and exuberant.

Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historical Society. The Thanks for the Memories column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun. Write to her at pshstracy@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs history: She rubbed elbows with a dizzying array of stars