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
Ray Stark went on to produce many notable films from the 1970s to the early 2000s, including "The Owl and the Pussycat" (1970), "The Way We Were" (1973), "Murder By Death" (1976), "The Goodbye Girl" (1977), "Seems Like Old Times" (1980), "Annie" (1982), and "Steel Magnolias" (1989). In 1974, Rastar was acquired by Columbia Pictures, which included Rastar Productions, Rastar Pictures, Rastar Features, and Rastar Television. Ray Stark then founded Rastar Films, later selling it to Columbia Pictures in 1980. Although stage and film actress Anne Bancroft was the initial first choice to play Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl", (the biopic production