Kay Medford high school and working as a nightclub waitress. She was the original "Mama" in "Bye Bye Birdie" on Broadway, garnering excellent reviews, but lost the film role to Maureen Stapleton. Medford appeared in the Warner Bros. rock and roll film, "Jamboree" (1957). She made her Broadway debut in 1951 in the musical "Paint Your Wagon". She was cast in "Carousel" before she appeared onstage in "Funny Girl" as the mother of Fanny Brice (played by Barbra Streisand); for this performance she was nominated for a 1964 Tony Award for Featured Actress (Musical), and when she repeated the role in the
Fanny Brice in the film "Making Trouble-Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women", a tribute to Jewish comedians produced by the Jewish Women’s Archive. Although the names of the principal characters were changed, the plot of the 1939 film "Rose of Washington Square", in which the principal characters were portrayed by Tyrone Power and Alice Faye, was inspired heavily by Brice's marriage and career, to the extent it borrowed its title from a tune she performed in the "Follies" and included "My Man". Ms. Brice sued 20th Century-Fox for invasion of privacy and won the case. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck was forced to