History: Palm Springs life was plenty fun and glamorous for Mousie and William Powell

Ambling up the driveway toward the house at 383 W. Vereda Norte was a strange-looking man in tennis shoes holding a cardboard shirt box. His presence alarmed the housekeeper, who ran to Mrs. William Powell, Diana Lewis, to alert her to the intruder. Lewis had to laugh as she instantly understood the visitor was none other than her friend Howard Hughes, the eccentric millionaire businessman, movie producer and pilot.

Welcoming him inside, she ascertained he had dropped by for breakfast on his way to New York. She knew Hughes to be a prodigious eater and instructed her Swedish cook accordingly. As she would remember years later, Hughes proceeded to eat 100 pancakes, an entire package of bacon and four cups of coffee. Then was on his way.

Such was the interesting Palm Springs life of Lewis, known as Mousie after her movie-star husband dubbed her a little mouse on their first date. She was indeed tiny in stature, barely five feet tall, but she had goliath energies and enthusiasm.

She had first been introduced to her soon-to-be husband at a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer luncheon for dignitaries. Years later she realized she’d been seated near Harry Truman (a decade before he was president), but hadn’t known it. Powell was entranced by the little starlet and arranged to meet her under the guise of a publicity photoshoot.

Ruth Waterbury writing for Photoplay Magazine at the time recounted the story the studio concocted about the couple’s meeting: “William Powell’s elopement with Diana Lewis was the last thing Hollywood expected, but then few knew the romantic truth behind it. It was, of course, sheer fate that sent young, beautiful, tiny Diana Lewis to William Powell’s swimming pool to make publicity pictures. She might just as well have been taken to any one of a dozen other Metro star’s pools, and Bill might just as well not have been at home. In fact, the studio thought that he was away. But he wasn’t. And thus it happened that one late winter afternoon he looked out into his garden and saw the vivid, unsophisticated girl standing there, laughing in the sun.”

Lewis had already appeared in multiple films alongside Mickey Rooney, arguably the biggest star in the world in the 1930s. Powell had achieved fame playing in the Thin Man movies as well as in the Philo Vance detective series. In December 1939, just after the photoshoot, the couple spent the weekend at The Desert Inn, where Powell proposed to Lewis. Only three weeks later, they eloped and were married in a grove of trees on the Hidden Well Ranch near Las Vegas just after the new year in 1940.

Waterbury and Hollywood were not amused. “The announcement that twenty-one-year-old c was the third Mrs. William Powell knocked Hollywood silly. The ‘wise crowd’ was offended because it had all been on the wrong Powell trail. You could until January 5th take your choice of Powell romantic rumors. There was (1) Bill’s supposed rekindling of the flirtation he had started several years ago with Ginger Rogers; (2) his supposed current infatuation with Loretta Young; (3) his inability ever to fall in love again because of his memory of Jean Harlow. Hollywood hating nothing quite so much as being caught with its rumors down, wailed several assorted moans to high heaven.”

Powell had been briefly married to Carole Lombard. As his romantic exploits had been newsworthy and protean, having included the most famous blonde female movie stars of the 1930s, his three-week whirlwind courtship and marriage to the little mouse was astonishing. One newspaper noted, “Hollywood heard the news with open-mouthed surprise. Few knew they were acquainted and almost none suspected their friendship was more than casual.”

The couple almost immediately decamped to Palm Springs and would live in the desert for the rest of their lives. Buying a little cottage in Las Palmas on Vereda Norte at the recommendation of their friend, neighbor and movie star Adolphe Menjou in 1941, they quickly became integrated into the community. Unlike Lombard, Lewis settled in as Mrs. Powell, giving up her movie career and plunging into life in Palm Springs. She would be the unofficial queen of the desert, social hostess and chief philanthropist for the next 50 years.

When asked why he seldom left the desert at all and almost never visited New York City again, Powell quipped, “Why should I? Everyone I know comes here sooner or later.”

Indeed, Palm Springs during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s was populated by the Hollywood set, captains of industry and socially prominent citizens from across the country. Mousie and William Powell would be in the mix through it all.

The couple spent countless evenings in the Bamboo Room at the Racquet Club with the owners, their close friends Charlie and Virginia Farrell. They were fixtures there as the parade of top stars like the Ritz Brothers, Tony Martin, Frank Sinatra, Ginger Rogers, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn and Rita Hayworth marched through the place, playing tennis and generally cavorting.

In 1949, during the middle of the week, a group of stars were trying to figure out how to amuse themselves after dark when Mousie suggested they play tennis on the one court at the club equipped with lights. George Robbins, the food and beverage manager, suggested that after the match they have a hamburger cookout by the pool.

Mousie sprang into action, organizing a round-robin tournament of sorts, as there was only the single court. As they group lounged post-play eating, Caroline Hicks, then wife of Harold Hicks — the realtor who’d sold the Powells their house — said, “These aren’t hamburgers, they’re Mouseburgers.”  The name stuck.

Mousie had a poodle named “Lil Darlin” at the time and decided the official name of the tournament’s winner would be “Lil Darlin’s Mouseburger Tennis Star.” The title was a highly sought honor. The Mouseburger became a regular event, so popular that by request of many friends and neighbors it was held every Wednesday night. Summers too.

Eventually, the Mouseburger had so many participants every court at the Racquet Club on Wednesday night was part of the tournament.  Spectators began to show up to cheer their favorite players on or just to watch the games. Many locals competed as did full-time resident celebrities like Dinah Shore and George Montgomery. The Mouseburger was its very own social scene.

The Powells were happily married living in Palm Springs for 44 years until his death in 1984. Presiding over the town for more than another decade, Mousie remained desert royalty until her death in 1997. Both are buried at Desert Memorial Park down the way from several of their other famous friends.

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: History: Palm Springs life was fun, glamorous for Mousie, William Powell