She was a ballerina and Broadway dancer on tour with a one-woman show in 1967, when she came across an abandoned, derelict social hall in Death Valley Junction, California. She and her husband restored it and named it the Amargosa Opera House.
She danced on Broadway in the 1946 revival of "Show Boat," as well as "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and "Wonderful Town." In the "Show Boat" program booklet, her given name Martha was misspelled as Marta. She decided to keep the new spelling.