Put panache into directing musical revues, travel firm

Frank A. Lloyd Jr. was a showman.

On the July evening in 1976 when Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip dined at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mr. Lloyd and his paying guests raised a toast to the queen as their boat passed the royal yacht, Britannia, at its Penn's Landing mooring.

"We're the people who didn't get invitations to the dinner for the queen. But we love her nonetheless," an unidentified passenger told Inquirer society columnist Ruth Seltzer.

In 1977 and 1978, Seltzer reported, Mr. Lloyd organized repeats of the outing and the toast - absent the yacht, the prince, and the queen.

Mr. Lloyd, 92, a director of provincial musical revues before he became director of a Philadelphia travel agency, died Monday, May 16, at Penn Hospice in Philadelphia after a fall.

From 1972 to 1975, Mr. Lloyd was executive director of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the gallery and event space near the southeast corner of Rittenhouse Square.

Then, for 33 years, he operated his travel firm, the House of Lloyd, lastly on 19th Street near Spring Garden Street.

But it was his event-staging that earned him newsprint.

"Last year," Seltzer reported in 1978, "we went to Mr. Lloyd's July 6 cruise to mark the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's visit here.

"Along with more than 100 others, we boarded the Showboat at Penn's Landing for a trip downriver to the Navy Yard and back again.

"It poured, but partygoers didn't seem to mind.

"British Consul Percy L. Norris and his wife, Angela, were among the passengers. . . .

"On July 27, Frank Lloyd's third annual cruise on the Delaware will get under way at the Penn's Landing pier. . . . This time, there will be a buffet supper. And the boat will sail upriver.

"Toasts to her majesty will be offered in white wine. . . .

"Said Frank Lloyd: 'Bring your camera. Bring your binoculars. And tuck in your sense of humor.' "

The twists and turns of a theatrical life suggested he might have needed such a sense.

Born in Fairmont, W.Va., Mr. Lloyd attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan in 1939-40 and earned a bachelor's degree in speech and drama at Columbia University in 1945, when he was 26.

During college, he worked as a tour guide at Rockefeller Center; as a vocal coach at a church in Brooklyn, N.Y.; and as a singer in productions at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J.

After graduation, he wrote in biographical notes, Mr. Lloyd sang in a national tour of Blossom Time.

In 1947, he wrote, the Jerome H. Cargill theatrical firm hired him "to direct musical revues as fund-raisers for organizations . . . using local talent." For instance, in 1949 he directed a Cargill show with a cast from Dominion Foundries & Steel Co. in Hamilton, Ontario.

After earning a master's degree in speech and drama at Columbia, in 1953 Mr. Lloyd became a director and producer at a TV station in Scranton, in 1954 a director at the NBC-TV station in Washington, and in 1956 assistant to the general manager at WFLN-FM in Philadelphia.

In 1957, Cargill named him booking agent for its productions in 14 Southern states.

In summers from 1962 to 1972, he ran the House of Lloyd, selling antiques. After he left the Art Alliance in 1975, the firm became a travel agency.

There were no survivors and no services.