Born in Melbourne to Henry William Crawford (a commerical salesman) and Charlotte Tuner (a contralto and organist), Dorothy Crawford was educated at schools in Fitzroy and St Kilda before graduating from the Albert Street Conservatorium, East Melbourne, in voice and piano.
Married in 1931, Crawford continued to pursue her career, working as an actress in radio dramas from the 1930s. In 1942, she joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) as one of their first three female announcers in Victoria: according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, 'As the ABC’s policy was not to employ married women, she kept her marriage and child secret.' (Her son, Ian Crawford, later joined Crawford Productions as a director.)
In 1944, Crawford left the ABC and joined her brother Hector, who was working for the Broadcast Exchange of Australia.
In 1945, Crawford and her brother co-founded Hector Crawford Productions (later simply Crawford Productions), as a producer of radio dramas and serials. While Hector managed music, sales and administration, Crawford specialised in script-editing and casting.
By 1953, when Crawford was selling the crime series The Crime Club, her credits as a producer of radio drama included Sincerely, Rita Marsden; A Man Called Sheppard; A Woman in Love; David's Children; adaptations of the Inspector West and The Toff series by English author John Creasey; D.24; Nom de Plume; Music for the People; and The Amazing Oscar Hammerstein.
According to the ADB,
Two years before the introduction of television into Australia in 1956, she initiated the Crawford TV Workshop, a school for young people interested in careers in the medium; it was to run until 1966. In mid-1956 she went abroad to study television. She and her brother made the transition to production for the small screen, starting with the ubiquitous quiz and game shows.
Beginning with Consider Your Verdict in 1961, Crawford oversaw an increasing number of highly successful television dramas, including Homicide, Division 4, and Matlock Police, which together dominated Australian television ratings in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Crawford developed Parkinson's disease in the 1960s, but continued working until 1978, when she retired from the family business.
