A co-founder of R.I. jazz festival

Elaine Lorillard, 93, the socialite who was a co-founder of the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, died Monday at a nursing home in Newport, the Associated Press reported. Lorillard, who was being treated for dementia, died of an infection.

Lorillard and her husband, Louis -- a descendant of Pierre Lorillard, who founded the P. Lorillard tobacco company in the 1700s -- became interested in hosting a jazz festival in 1953.

According to the New York Times’ obituary of Lorillard, the couple asked George Wein, the owner of a jazz club in Boston, to produce the first festival, which was held on the grounds of the Newport Casino on July 17-18, 1954. The bill for that historic event included Oscar Peterson’s trio, the Modern Jazz Quartet and singers Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

A nonprofit Newport Jazz Festival foundation was formed, and the Lorillards ran it for six years. But, in 1960, financial support for the festival was drying up and Wein took over the operation. Lorillard and her husband later divorced. She clashed with Wein over management of the festival, filing a lawsuit in 1959. She and Wein publicly reconciled in 1992.

Lorillard was born Elaine Gutherie in Tremont, Maine. During World War II, she worked for the Red Cross in Italy, where she met her future husband, an Army lieutenant. They were married in 1946.