(1972), Young Frankenstein (1974), High Anxiety (1977), History of the World, Part I (1981), and her Academy Award–nominated roles in Paper Moon (1973) and Blazing Saddles (1974).

Kahn was born in Boston, the daughter of Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer, and his wife Freda (née Goldberg).

[5] In 1960, she graduated from Martin Van Buren High School[6] in Queens, New York, and then earned a drama scholarship to Hofstra University on Long Island.

[9]Kahn began auditioning for professional acting roles shortly after her graduation from Hofstra; on the side, she briefly taught public school.

[15] Kahn appeared in two Broadway musicals in the 1970s: a featured role in Richard Rodgers' 1970 Noah's Ark–themed show Two by Two[12] (singing a high C)[5] and a lead turn as Lily Garland in 1978's On the Twentieth Century.

[16][17] She starred in a 1977 Town Hall semi-staged concert version of She Loves Me (opposite Barry Bostwick and original London cast member Rita Moreno).

(Several of Ball's biographies say Kahn was eager to be released from the role so that she could join the cast of Blazing Saddles, a film about to go into production.

[20]) Ball's version was that Kahn had already been offered Blazing Saddles and thus deliberately got herself fired by acting badly in the first few days of shooting for Mame.

[21] A close succession of comedies—Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), and High Anxiety (1977)—were all directed by Mel Brooks,[12] who was able to bring out the best of Kahn's comic talents.

At Long Last Love was one of three films in which Kahn worked alongside the character actress Eileen Brennan, the other two being The Cheap Detective and Clue.

In 1978, Kahn's comic screen persona reached another peak with her portrayal of Mrs. Montenegro in Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978),[12] a spoof of both Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, directed by Robert Moore.

She played Mrs. White in 1985's Clue,[27] First Lady Constance Link in the 1980 spoof First Family, a twin from outer space in the Jerry Lewis sci-fi comedy Slapstick of Another Kind (1982), the love interest of Burt Reynolds in the crime comedy City Heat (1984), and Draggle in the animated film My Little Pony: The Movie (1986).

According to animator Don Bluth, she was cast because he was "hoping she would use a voice similar to the one she used as a character in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.

[29] In 1987, Kahn won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance in the ABC Afterschool Special Wanted: The Perfect Guy.

[5] Kahn returned to the stage as Billie Dawn in the 1989 Broadway revival of Born Yesterday, for which she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

[30] Kahn played the mother of Molly Ringwald's character in the 1990 film Betsy's Wedding,[31] and shortly after she recorded a voice for the animated movie The Magic 7, which, as of 2024, has still not been released.

[37] Kahn received good reviews for her Chekhovian turn in the 1999 independent movie Judy Berlin, her final film.