RIP: Actress & Dancer Marta Becket dies at 92

Marta Becket, who made Amargosa Opera House famous, dies at 92

For decades, the artist and performer put on one-woman shows inside the Pacific Coast It was a flat tire that brought classically trained dancer Marta Becket to Death Valley Junction, California, in 1967.

Nothing could ever make her leave.Borax Company’s old community hall, which she transformed with her paint brush and her passion into the world famous Amargosa Opera House.

Becket died Monday at her home in Death Valley Junction, according to Inyo County deputy coroner Jeff Mullenhour. She was 92.

She was born Aug. 9, 1924, in New York City, where she grew up studying dance, piano and art. As a young woman, she performed on Broadway and at Radio City Music Hall.

Becket was camping with her husband in Death Valley in the spring of 1967 when a flat tire sent them to the junction for a repair.

While there, she discovered an abandoned theater on the property just across the Nevada border, 95 miles west of Las Vegas.

They rented the old building the next day.

Becket gave her first performance in the theater on Feb. 10, 1968, and the curtains parted every Monday, Friday and Saturday for years after that.

She was still dancing — and still rising up onto her toes to stand en pointe — well into her 80s, though health problems slowed her in her final years.

Her story was captured in the Emmy-winning documentary “Amargosa” of 2000.

Becket gave her final performance on Feb. 12, 2012, before turning her theater over to a series of visiting performers under the direction of a nonprofit group.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/local/nevada/marta-becket-who-made-amargosa-opera-house-famous-dies-92