"Perhaps if I had been Louis Picon's son I would have had a classical education and been a scholar. Instead, as the wardrobe mistress's daughter, I got a love of the stage because there I could make believe I was all the things I could never be in real life."

Molly Picon spent her youth onstage performing spunky song and dance routines in all-American amateur nights, local Nickelodeon Theater acts, trolley cars and the Columbia Yiddish Theater. Although she wanted to stay in school, she was exhausted from performing at night and then going to school each morning. At sixteen, Picon left William Penn High School to pursue a full time stage career. She was eventually cast as Winter in The Four Seasons, a traveling vaudeville production.