[2] She became a musical theatre star with her performance in the original production of The Most Happy Fella, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award in 1957.
[9] She competed on the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts radio program but lost to a pair of harmonica players.
[4] Sullivan played Polly Peachum in Marc Blitzstein's English-language adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht[9] off-Broadway in 1954.
In the summer of 1951, she played Dorothy Gale in The Muny's production of The Wizard of Oz, opposite Margaret Hamilton, who reprised her film role of the Wicked Witch of the West.
In the early 1980s, she resumed her performing career when officials of The Ballroom, a nightclub in New York City, asked her to sing some of her late husband's songs.