Throughout her career, she collaborated with various influential figures in the American musical theater, including Jerome Kern, Cy Coleman, Irving Berlin, and Jimmy McHugh.

Along with Ann Ronell, Dana Suesse, Bernice Petkere, and Kay Swift, she was one of the first successful Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood female songwriters.

Her father, Lew Fields, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland who partnered with Joe Weber as one of the most popular comedy vaudeville duos near the end of the nineteenth century.

Early in her career Fields appeared on stage with English actress and socialite Sylvia Ashley—who subsequently married Douglas Fairbanks Sr and Clark Gable—as "Silly and Dotty" in "Midnight Follies" at the London Metropole, followed by further appearances in "Tell me More" at London's Winter Gardens and "The Whole Town's Talking" [1][2] In 1926, Fields met the popular song composer J. Fred Coots, who proposed that the two begin writing songs together.

[3] Fields's career as a professional songwriter took off in 1928 when Jimmy McHugh, who had seen some of her early work, invited her to provide some lyrics for him for Blackbirds of 1928.

[5] She wrote the lyrics for the songs in the 1936 movie The King Steps Out, based on the early years of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, directed by Josef von Sternberg.

In the 1940s, she teamed up with her brother Herbert Fields, with whom she wrote the books for three Cole Porter shows, Let's Face It!, Something for the Boys, and Mexican Hayride.

In 1945, Fields approached Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II with her idea for a new musical based on the life of famous female sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

She was an amateur pianist and a lifelong lover of classical music; the awareness of melodic lines that this fostered in her was of value in the task of fitting lyrics to melodies.

[3] Fields' professional longevity was rare at the time for a songwriter; it was underpinned by her imagination and her willingness to adapt to changing trends in American musical theater.

She was known to spend about eight weeks researching, discussing, and making notes on a project before finally returning to her regular 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily work routine.

The New York Times reported "Dorothy Fields, the versatile songwriter whose career spanned nearly 50 years, died of a heart attack last night at her home here.