Dorothy Buffum Chandler

"What is important here tonight is not the fund-raising or the building that we are in. The only really important thing here tonight is the music we heard performed…That will go on forever."
-- Dorothy Chandler on the dedication of the Music Center of Los Angeles County, 1964

Dorothy Chandler (1901-1997) was born Dorothy Buffum in Lafayette, Illinois. While still a toddler, she moved with her family to Long Beach, California, where her father opened a dry-goods store called the Mercantile Co., which later became Buffums’, the first of a chain of department stores bearing that name.

While attending Stanford University, Dorothy Buffum met fellow student Norman Chandler, son of Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler. The couple were married in 1922. Under his father’s tutelage, Norman went on to hold key positions at the newspaper. He became publisher of the Times in 1973 upon his father’s death. (Otis Chandler, the son of Norman and Dorothy, would also become the Times publisher.)

Popularly known by the nickname of "Buff," Mrs. Chandler became a diligent volunteer and fund-raiser for Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. Over the years, her civic interests grew. Concerned that women were not adequately recognized for their community services, she instituted an annual awards ceremony to honor women for individual achievement. This idea became the Times Women of the Year awards, given out between 1950 and 1976.

It was during the 1950s that Mrs. Chandler began her ascendancy as a civic leader and unrivaled cultural fund-raiser. In 1950, when a financial crisis forced the closing of the Hollywood Bowl on the fourth day of its summer season, Mrs. Chandler chaired a committee that organized a series of "Save the Bowl" concerts in which headline musicians performed without fee. Largely through her efforts, the Bowl was re-opened and the season completed.

The Bowl crisis was simply a warm-up for the prodigious Chandler-led effort to build a suitable home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and rejuvenate the performing arts in Los Angeles. The result was Mrs. Chandler’s crowning achievement, the Music Center of Los Angeles County. Her tenacious nine-year campaign on behalf of the Music Center produced more than $19 million in private donations. One benefit party alone, held at the Ambassador Hotel, netted $400,000.

Actor Charlton Heston recalled an incident in which "a very wealthy man gave her a check for $20,000 [for the Music Center], and she tore it up, said it was ridiculous, that she needed more than that." A story in the Los Angeles Times quoted her as saying that a good fund-raiser should be "at various times a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a marriage counselor and even a sort of family doctor. You have to know the family situation at all times. Divorce, illness, death – or just a routine change in the family financial situation – can inhibit contribution." A cover story in Time magazine described her Music Center fund drive as "perhaps the most impressive display of virtuoso money-raising and civic citizenship in the history of U.S. womanhood."

The $33 million, three-theater complex was dedicated in 1964. Fittingly, its central building, the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is named the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Upon her death in 1997 at the age of 96, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said: "Her imprint will be part of Los Angeles for many centuries to come. In culture, she certainly was the most outstanding leader in the history of the city. As a person, she was a very strong, beautiful, wonderful mother and spouse, and someone we’ll always remember."