Naturally talented, she began dancing professionally during her early twenties with the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall and later on Broadway in three popular musicals including Showboat. Many have traveled to this remote corner at the eastern edge of Death Valley National Park to catch a fleeting glimpse of Becket’s desert legacy in art, music and dance-now continued through the efforts of a young but retired Bay Area ballerina who was originally inspired to take up dance when she first witnessed Marta on stage at six years of age.īorn on August 9, 1924, in New York City’s Greenwich Village, creatively precocious Martha Becket began studying ballet at age fourteen-considered a late start in the professional dance world-through encouragement and support from her somewhat overbearing mother.

Her legendary story is not only the subject of the Emmy-winning documentary Amargosa (2000) but one that has captured the imagination of fans from across the globe. A fortune teller’s prophecy and a fortuitous flat tire led the multitalented doyenne Marta Becket to resurrect and transform Death Valley Junction’s decaying community meeting hall into a gloriously muraled theater where for four decades she has performed her own choreographed ballet and vaudeville acts for an international audience.

Amargosa opera house motel