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 do a show until it's on the air, kid") but always snapped into it on the air, losing herself completely in the character: "While she was on the air she was Baby Snooks. And... for an hour after the show, she was still Baby Snooks. The Snooks voice disappeared, of course, but the Snooks temperament, thinking, actions were all there." Brice and Stafford brought Baby Snooks and Daddy to television only once, an appearance in June 1950 on CBS-TV's "Popsicle Parade of Stars". This was Fanny Brice's only appearance on television. Brice handled herself well on the live TV broadcast