Along with her husband, the writer/actor Jacob Kalich, she wrote over 100 songs and skits for the stage.
Her father was from Warsaw Poland and worked in the needles trade; her mother was from Kiev, Ukraine, and worked as a seamstress. He left the family when Molly was still a child and the family relocated to Philadelphia where her mother sewed costumes for actresses at Kessler's Yiddish Theatre.
Her first English-speaking role in film was an uncredited role as a soda-selling neighborhood shopkeeper in Mark Hellinger's movie "The Naked City" (1948).
Popular at the Second Avenue Theater in New York, she opened the theatre in 1931 when they changed the theater's name to The Molly Picon Theater in her honor.
Pre-eminent actress of Yiddish theater in the United States.
Was a 1962 Tony Award nominee as Best Actress (Musical) for "Milk and Honey," in the role that really cemented her fame beyond the Yiddish theater.
Was a strong, popular presence in World War II, performing for the sick, the American troops, and the Jewish Holocaust survivors. She also was active in the Foster Parents' Plan for war children.