Elaine Lorillard

Elaine Guthrie Lorillard

Duke Ellington and Elaine Lorillard
Born Elaine Guthrie
October 11, 1914(1914-10-11)
Tremont, Maine
Died November 26, 2007(2007-11-26) (aged 93)
Newport, Rhode Island
Cause of death Infection
Known for Newport Jazz Festival
Spouse Louis Lorillard
Parents Walter Guthrie
Eliza Pray

Elaine Guthrie Lorillard (October 11, 1914 – November 26, 2007) was an American socialite who was a founder of the Newport Jazz Festival. [1]

Contents

Early years

She was born as Elaine Guthrie in Tremont, Maine. She was the daughter of Walter Edward Guthrie and Eliza Pray Guthrie. Her father owned a printing company in Boston, MA, and her mother was classical singer. Elaine attended the New England Conservatory of Music, and in 1943 she went to work for the Red Cross, where she taught piano and painting to orphans in Naples, Italy. In Naples she met United States Army Lieutenant Louis Livingston Lorillard (1919-1984) and they married in 1946. Louis was a descendant of Pierre Lorillard, the founder of the P. Lorillard Tobacco Company in 1760. In Naples she first was exposed to Jazz.[1] She had also been exposed to jazz while living in New York City before joining the Red Cross.

Jazz Festival

While visiting Storyville Nightclub with her brother Thomas T. Guthrie and his friend Professor Borne from Boston University in 1953, she and Mr. Lorillard met George Wein, who owned the nightclub and they told him jazz might liven up the "terribly boring" establishment. Her husband, tobacco heir Louis Lorillard, who died in 1984, gave a $20,000 grant to a festival, the first of which in July 1954 attracted 11,000 fans. Mr. Lorillard continued to support the festival until 1961.[2] [3] The Lorillards maintained even after their divorce in the seventies that the Newport Jazz Festival was founded by Elaine and Louis Lorillard as a nonprofit organization, proceeds of which would have gone to promote the education of musicians.

Death

She died of an infection in the Heatherwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Newport, Rhode Island where she had been treated for MRSA at the age of 93.[4][1][5]

References

Elaine Lorillard's death certificate stated that she died from "MRSA Bocteremic/Endoceeditis." Please see the Certification of Vital Record State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations for Elaine Lorillard, 11/26/07.

  1. ^ a b c Hevesi, Dennis (2007-11-28). "Elaine Lorillard, 93, a Founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, Is Dead.". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/arts/music/28lorillard.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2007-12-12. "Elaine Lorillard, a socialite who with her husband, Louis, lured jazz greats to their hometown in Rhode Island for a two-day concert series in the summer of 1954, starting the Newport Jazz Festival and creating the model for what became a worldwide circuit of outdoor jazz festivals, died on Monday near her home in Newport. She was 93." 
  2. ^ "Our Man in Jazz.". The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030714/santoro. Retrieved 2007-12-12. "It all began in 1954, with the first American jazz festival at Newport. Elaine Lorillard, one of the restless rich women who appear again and again throughout jazz history, showed up at Storyville, with the idea of bringing jazz to the seaside-cottage elite." 
  3. ^ "Elaine Lorillard co-founded the Newport Jazz Festival with her husband Louis Lorillard". The Boston Globe. 2007-12-03. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2007/12/03/elaine_lorillard_helped_start_newport_jazz_festival/. Retrieved 2007-12-10. "Mrs. Lorillard and her husband, Louis, hired George Wein, then an employee of Storyville jazz club in Boston, to make it happen. On Saturday and Sunday, July 17 and 18, 1954, at the hallowed Newport Casino on Bellevue Avenue amid the manicured courts of the Tennis Hall of Fame, the sounds of Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Gene Krupa, and Billie Holiday filled the night and day. A tradition was born." 
  4. ^ Associated Press (2007-11-29). "Elaine Lorillard, jazz festival pioneer, dies". Newsday. http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/thursday/news/ny-lorillard295480519nov29,0,3551368.story. Retrieved 2007-12-10. "Elaine Lorillard, the socialite who encouraged a club worker to start the Newport Jazz Festival, has died of an infection, nursing home officials said. She was 93." 
  5. ^ "Jazz festival founder Elaine Lorillard dies.". Newport Daily News. "Elaine Lorillard, whose dream of a small local jazz festival mushroomed into one of America's legendary ..." 

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