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
Funny Girl (musical) from prison, and he and Fanny decide to separate. She is heartbroken, but resolves to pick up her life again ("Don't Rain on My Parade, Reprise"). Ray Stark had commissioned an authorized biography of Brice, based on taped recollections she had dictated, but was unhappy with the result. It eventually cost him $50,000 to stop publication of "The Fabulous Fanny", as it had been titled by the author. Stark then turned to Ben Hecht to write the screenplay for a biopic, but neither Hecht nor the ten writers who succeeded him were able to produce a version that satisfied Stark.