The Lorillards, Louis and Elaine, and George Wein, right, in 1954. The Lorillards founded the Newport Jazz Festival and hired Wein to organize it.

Journal FILE PHOTO

NEWPORT — Elaine Lorillard, who has been credited with founding the Newport Jazz Festival, died Sunday at a nursing home a few miles away from the grounds where the summer festival continues to thrive more than a half-century later. She was 93.

While George Wein is often considered the festival’s founder, it was Lorillard and her former husband, Louis, who hired him to run it, according to histories of the jazz series. The festival was bittersweet for Lorillard. In a 1997 interview with The Providence Journal, she complained that Wein has described himself as the founder and that, despite its ability to attract big name sponsors, “I never saw a penny from that festival.”

“I am proud of what I did, but it’s brought me great unhappiness,” she said.

Lorillard, who was born in Maine, died at Heatherwood Nursing & Subacute Center, not far from her longtime home on Dennison Street. She had just moved to the nursing facility recently.

“She died in her sleep,” said Christine Lorillard, a daughter-in-law, who is married to Lorillard’s son, Pierre. They live in Los Angeles. Lorillard’s only other surviving child is Edith “Didi” Cowley, of Newport.

Lorillard never lost her passion for jazz or ceased seeing herself in relation to the festival.

“She took pride in it. She talked about it all of the time,” said Christine Lorillard. “It was one of the highlights of her life.”

Her house was adorned with festival memorabilia and plaques given to her commemorating her contribution to jazz. Among them was a White House invitation from 1993 when President Bill Clinton held a jazz concert to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the festival. She also held onto a copy of the original festival charter: The only names on it are the Lorillards and three lawyers.

In a book called Newport Jazz Festival: The Illustrated History, author Burt Goldblatt quoted famed music producer John Hammond as saying, “As far as I’m concerned, Elaine Lorillard should have the whole credit for the concept of the Newport Jazz Festival.”

Lorillard’s husband was a descendant of the original owner of The Breakers mansion and the founder of Lorillard Tobacco Co. In Louis Lorillard’s 1986 Providence Journal obituary, Elaine Lorillard traced the festival’s origin to “when I thought of the idea and he said he would back it.” Her husband hired Wein, of Boston, and cut him a check for $20,000 for expenses. The couple left town and returned for the festival.

“We were absolutely floored by it,” she said. “We thought it was going to be just a local kind of thing, and people came from all over the world.”

Lorillard divorced her husband and broke from the festival, eventually suing it in 1959. But she and Wein reconciled and in 1992 the two appeared on stage together on the festival’s opening night.

In 1997, she was honored at the Jubile, Franco-Americain, in Woonsocket. She served on the board of directors of the festival and pushed the organization to feature jazz during its concert.

In the early years of the Newport festival, musicians would hang around her house. She always remembered sax virtuoso Gerry Mulligan sleeping on her lawn during the festival. But it was the music as much as the players that she long revered.

“She had an original collection of albums that she gave to us that she prized,” said Christine Lorillard. “And she was passing that on as a legacy to her son.”

She said that the family will have a private memorial service at an undetermined date.

rsalit@projo.com