Born Dorothy Mae Buffum (nicknamed “Buff” or “Buffie”) in 1901 in La Fayette, Illinois, she moved to Long Beach, California, in 1904 with her family. Her father, Charles Abel Buffum (later mayor 1921-1924), and her uncle, Edwin, opened the first of what would become the 16-store chain of Buffums department stores.

She attended Stanford University, where at a school dance she met Norman Chandler, eldest son of the family that had published the Los Angeles Times since 1883 and was a significant social and political force in the area. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. The two married in 1922, and had two children, Camilla and Otis, both born in 1927. At the time of her death in 1997, she had eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

In 1945, her husband became publisher of the Times, a position he held until he was succeeded by their son, Otis, in 1960. Norman Chandler died in 1973. Dorothy Chandler never remarried.

In 1950, a financial crisis closed the Hollywood Bowl during its summer season. Chandler chaired a committee that organized a series of fundraising concerts that was able to reopen it, and she later served as president of its parent organization, the Southern California Symphony Association.

From this early success, she started a longer effort to build a performing arts center for Los Angeles. In 1955 she raised $400,000 at a benefit concert at the Ambassador Hotel featuring Dinah Shore, Danny Kaye and Jack Benny. This fundraiser began a nine-year crusade that raised some $20 million of the estimated $35 million total cost; the remainder was paid through private bond sales.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Mrs. Chandler to his Committee on Education Beyond the High School and, in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson named her to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information.

The Los Angeles Music Center held its first performance on December 6, 1964. The 24- year old conductor that Chandler hired, Zubin Mehta, led the Los Angeles Philarmonic orchestra. “We have given it bricks and mortar. Now we must give it a soul”, Mrs. Chandler opined that evening.

The complex was completed in 1967, consisting of three venues: the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, named in honor of Chandler, the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre. The Chandler Pavilion served as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1964 until 2003, when the Music Center opened its fourth hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

On September 17, 2005, the Walt Disney Concert Hall held a Dorothy Chandler memorial concert.