[6] Her mother, who later remarried and was working as a hotel maid, searched 12 years for her daughters and found them after she saw Kathryn in a movie magazine in 1929.

Crawford first ventured into singing when she joined the choir at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church of Huntington Park while she was a high school student.

[7] Crawford worked as a shop assistant for some time but was determined to make use of her singing voice and decided to pursue musical comedy.

[5] She began performing in summer stock jobs across the Pacific Coast until she got her big break as the ingenue in the play Hit the Deck.

The play was successful, and she attracted the attention of director Wesley Ruggles, who gave her a screen test that won her a contract with Universal Pictures.

"[8] Ted Gioia wrote in the book The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, "audience outrage subsided after the Broadway production shifted the setting of the song to Harlem, in front of the Cotton Club, and assigned the number to African-American vocalist Elisabeth Welch instead of Kathryn Crawford, a white singer.

[10] Civic activities in which Crawford was active included Friends of Harvey Mudd College, Los Angeles Music Center, the Blue Ribbon 400, the Society for Preservation of Variety Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Society of American Interior Designers.