After attending Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard, and serving in World War I, Walter founded the family printing company in Boston.

Guthrie attended the New England Conservatory of Music, and in 1943 she joined the Red Cross where she taught piano and painting to orphans in Naples, Italy.

They met George Wein, who founded and managed the nightclub, and they discussed the possibility of bringing an outdoor jazz concert to Newport, Rhode Island, where they lived.

[5] The movie High Society (1956), with a storyline by family friend Cleveland Amory, adapted The Philadelphia Story (film) as a musical set in Newport during the jazz festival.

The movie was filmed in Newport with scenes from the Lorillards' life, from a convertible passing their house, "Quatrel" on Bellevue Avenue, to their daughter sitting at their piano with Louis Armstrong.