"[2] Though Barbara began singing at an early age, at the Elks Club and to her father over the phone, she spent three years after graduating from high school working as a typist.

[5] In 1949 she performed in a touring vaudeville act entitled "A Toast To Rodgers and Hammerstein" which was organized by pianist Erwin Strauss, the son of the composer Oscar Straus.

[1] She landed another role quickly, portraying Ado Annie in the 1951 City Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!,[8] and stayed with the production when it went on its national tour the following year.

Also in 1952, Cook made her first television appearance on the show Armstrong Circle Theatre which presented her in an original play entitled Mr. Bemiss Takes a Trip.

[9] In 1954, Cook appeared in the short-lived soap opera Golden Windows and starred as Jane Piper in a television version of Victor Herbert's operetta Babes in Toyland.

That summer, she returned to City Center to portray Carrie Pipperidge in a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, which Cook described as "the first time the critics really paid attention to me.

Walter Kerr wrote of her performance: "Barbara Cook, right off a blue and white Dutch plate, is delicious all the time, but especially when she perches on a trunk, savors her first worthwhile kiss, and melts into the melody of 'This Is All Very New to Me'.

"[11] Cook's critical reputation and coloratura soprano range won her the role of Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein's 1956 operetta Candide, in which she premiered the vocally demanding, show-stopping comic aria "Glitter and Be Gay".

[12] Cook continued to appear regularly on television in the late 1950s, starring in a 1956 Producers' Showcase production of Bloomer Girl, a 1957 live broadcast of The Yeomen of the Guard, and a 1958 musical adaptation of Hansel and Gretel.

[19] Cook starred in an acclaimed 1960 City Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I and in the short-lived 1961 musical The Gay Life.

[20] Her performance prompted Norman Nadel of the World-Telegram & Sun to write, "Her clear soprano is not only one of the finest vocal instruments in the contemporary musical theatre, but it conveys all the vitality, brightness and strength of her feminine young personality, which is plenty.

The performing duo traveled all over the world giving concerts together including a number of times at the White House – for Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

[36] In 1986, she recorded the role of Martha in the Sharon Burgett musical version of The Secret Garden along with John Cullum, Judy Kaye, and George Rose.

In 1988, she originated the role of Margaret White in the ill-fated musical version of Stephen King's Carrie, which premiered in England and was presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[41] In November 1997, Cook celebrated her 70th birthday by giving a concert at Albert Hall in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, joined by performers including Elaine Stritch and Maria Friedman.

Cook is one of the few performers who manage to combine the best of both traditions, as she reminded us in 'It Might as Well be Spring' – and, at the close, in her encore of Bock and Harnick's 'Ice Cream'.

[43] Also in 2000, she was joined by Lillias White, Malcolm Gets, and Debbie Gravitte on the studio cast recording of Jimmy McHugh's Lucky in the Rain.

[46] DRG filmed the stage production during a performance at the Pepsico Theatre, SUNY Purchase, New York, on October 11, 2002[46] and it was released on DVD on the DRG/Koch Entertainment label.

[46] In 2004 she performed two limited engagement concert series at the Vivian Beaumont and Mitzi Newhouse theaters at Lincoln Center, "Barbara Cook's Broadway!

[51] After Wally Harper's death in October 2004, Cook made adjustments to new accompanists in solo shows like Tribute (a reference to Harper) and No One Is Alone that continued to receive acclaim; The New York Times wrote in 2005 that she was "at the top of her game.... Cook's voice is remarkably unchanged from 1958, when she won the Tony Award for playing Marian the Librarian in The Music Man.

The New York Times Stephen Holden wrote that Cook is "a performer spreading the gospel of simplicity, self-reliance and truth" who is "never glib" and summoning adjectives such as "astonishing" and "transcendent", concluding that she sings with "a tenderness and honesty that could break your heart and mend it all at once.

"[56] In June 2008, Cook appeared in Strictly Gershwin at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England, with the full company of English National Ballet.

Performers paying tribute to Cook on that occasion included Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, Kelli O'Hara, Rebecca Luker, Sutton Foster, Laura Osnes, Anna Christy, and Audra McDonald.

[67] Cook married acting teacher David LeGrant (December 8, 1923 – July 28, 2011) on March 9, 1952, after meeting at a resort on the Borscht Belt.