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
The Back-up Plan (Glee) role as Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl." She travels to LA under the guise of being sick to audition for a television pilot, "Song" "of" "Solomon", against the advice of her roommate Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer). In California, she auditions with The Rose, and is informed it is not a musical. The audition goes uncomfortably awry, partially due to the unfamiliar galactic jargon. Sidney, the producer of "Funny Girl", calls to tell her to be at the theater at 7:30 as her understudy has injured herself. Rachel is horrified to discover the state of the traffic jam her taxi is