Wealthy throughout her childhood and early adulthood, in 1918 she married A. Scott Bullitt, a lawyer and aspiring politician 14 years her senior.

Scott Bullitt, a member of a prominent Kentucky family, became a prominent Democrat and friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was scheduled to place Roosevelt's name in nomination for the U.S. presidency at the 1932 Democratic National Convention when he died of liver cancer, leaving Dorothy a widow at the age of 40.

She attended the convention as a delegate in her late husband's place, and presented a plank outlawing child labor for the party's platform.

After Scott's death, Dorothy Bullitt hired a lawyer and took personal charge of her family's real estate holdings.

Dorothy and Stimson both believed strongly that the stations of King Broadcasting should serve the public, and not just be driven by ratings and revenue.

In 1966, Stimson Bullitt himself made the only televised appearance of his career when he delivered an impassioned and controversial editorial against the Vietnam War, long before the American public as a whole began to turn against the conflict's prosecution.

Patsy Bullitt Collins, who died in 2003, was ranked 16th in that year's "Slate 60" list of the nation's largest charitable donors for bequests to the Nature Conservancy, CARE USA, and the Trust for Public Land totaling $71.1 million.