Dorothy Buffum Chandler

The incomparable Dorothy Buffum Chandler is gone, but the great metropolis you see around you is as much her monument as any man’s or woman’s. Everyone knows how she saved the Hollywood Bowl and built the Music Center. To have done that alone would bring honor on any person, but she did much more than that. For it was not just her formidable talent for raising money she brought to these two prime public tasks of her life, it was her relentless drive for excellence. She appeared on the scene at a crucial moment in the life of Los Angeles and appeared as if by force of will alone to be propelling it from provincial town to vibrant, modern, cultured city.

As wife of one publisher of The Times and mother of another, she started from a base of substantial power, but no one who knew her ever made the mistake of thinking she was merely an extension of the newspaper or its publishers. Her entree was her name and station; her personal strength was all her own.

Her family, her multitude of friends, her colleagues here at Times Mirror Square will all remember her with deep fondness and profound respect, each in his or her own way. We should like to add one aspect of her manifold achievements that especially warms the memory. Mrs. Chandler saw this city as the multiracial, multiethnic place it is long before it was commonplace to see it so. She was the first to bring the leaders of the Jewish and Gentile communities together to work for a common purpose, and through the Music Center and the Times Women of the Year awards she drew support from and gave honor to African Americans, Latinos and others. For that, as for her other works, and for the gift of herself, she will always be part of Los Angeles.