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| Cecilia Loftus (1876-1943) |
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In Press and Literature |
(The Playgoer, Vol. 2 No. 9, 14th June, 1902)
A Chat With Miss CECILIA LOFTUS
"You ought to be supremely happy, Miss Loftus. You have obtained your heart's desire, which was to act a leading part in London - and under what splendid auspices!" I remarked on calling on our latest "Margaret," a few days after her brilliant debut at the Lyceum, in Faust.
"Yes, indeed. To act such a part as Margaret has been my ambition from a child," Miss Loftus replied with a smile, which reminded me of the time when this young lady, not long in her teens, used to run on at the Oxford Music Hall in her muslin frock and sash, and delight everyone with her life-like imitations of many of the popular singers and actors of the day. "I have played, as of course you know, some very nice parts in America"
"Yes, quite recently. But how was it, with your desire to act, that you did not take to the stage some years ago?"
"For the very simple reason that I could not get any manager to give me a chance. 'No, no,' they would say, 'you stick to your imitations; you would be no good as an actress.' However, I found a friend in Madame Modjeska, who gave me a part with her in The Ladies' Battle, when she was appearing at Providence, U.S.A. She helped me still more by putting on Twelfth Night at three matinees in New York, entirely that I might play 'Viola,' for she did not herself take part in the production. Later on, I played 'Audrey' in As you like it."
"And what is your ideal part? what style do you fancy yourself in ?".
"I should like a thoroughly good comedy part with plenty of light and shade. Now if any of your friends - well, you understand, don't you?" smilingly observed Miss Loftus. "I believe Mr. Stephen Philips is writing a dramatic poem in which I may have a part. However - but I had better not say any more about that perhaps."
"You made a great hit as 'Elsie' in A Man of Forty; so the American papers said?"
"Well, that is a part I liked more than any other, but the part to which I owe the first great chance of my life was that of 'Lucy Sacheverell,' a Puritan character, in Lawrence Irving's Richard Lovelace. It was played at a matinee, and both Sir Henry and Miss Ellen Terry were present. It seems that I was fortunate enough to please Miss Terry, for she wrote me a most charming letter after the performance, saying that I 'had not missed any of the opportunities which the part gave me', and that I 'added to its innumerable beauties'; and then she went on to say that she had consulted Sir Henry, and if I liked I might fill her place in Faust. Need I say that I was overwhelmed by my good fortune? Oh! she has been so kind, so helpful, and so sympathetic towards me."
"I sincerely hope we may see Richard Lovelace performed here."
"I am sure you would be delighted with it. Mr. H.B. Irving has the play. It was his brother's wedding present to him."
"I have been told that you made a very favourable impression as 'Lady Catherine' in If I were King."
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| Undine |
"Which Mr. George Alexander will produce shortly, I believe," said Miss Loftus, "and in which Miss Julia Opp will probably play the part I created," Then turning to a side table, she picked up a photograph (here reproduced), and asked, "How do you like me as the sprite-like Undine? I played the title role of Mr. Grant Stewart's play. Would you have recognised me?".
"Of course. But tell me, are you going to play any part other than 'Margaret' at the Lyceum ?"
"I really don't know as yet; I am, however, going on tour with Sir Henry in July, and I may then appear in other plays of his repertory."
"You will not, I hope, entirely give up your clever imitations. I believe you were the first young lady to originate them, and certainly you have not been eclipsed by any one else."
"Oh, please don't speak of those hateful imitations. They were only the outcome of my schoolgirl days."
"They belong, in short, to the days when you were Cissie Loftus, and had not developed into Cecilia," I said banteringly.
"That's too bad of you. I should never have changed into Cecilia only that Mr. Frohman insisted on it when I first came under his management. Perhaps you don't know that I should never have publicly imitated had it not been for the late Mr. Charles Brighten of the Oxford Music Hall, where, by the way, I made my first appearance. I had meant them entirely for the home circle. They were just 'bits and scraps' I had picked up from the artistes at the music halls to which I went during the holidays, when my mother, Miss Marie Loftus, was professionally singing in them."
"You find, I suppose, that some are easier to give than others?"
"Oh, no. They come to me haphazard. I rarely make a study of any particular artiste. Of course, if one is more in vogue than another you hear him or her more frequently, and so you may pick up the particular song more readily."
"And you have imitated people to their faces sometimes, I expect. Now what do they say?" I asked with some curiosity.
"They generally say my imitations of other people are quite the best I do," remarked Miss Loftus, with a mischievous smile.
"What they think of my imitations of them they discreetly keep to themselves," she added.
"By the way, I have never heard you recite; have you ever recited in public, Miss Loftus ?"
"No; but I should have no objection to try."
"I think you would be most successful, especially in pathetic pieces." One can perceive great depth of feeling in her large and somewhat sad blue eyes, while the natural timbre of her voice is full of sympathy. And I bethought me of her beautiful rendering of the "Goose-girl" in Humperdinck's poetical Children of the King, played at the Court Theatre a few years ago, and I said so.
"I confess I enjoyed the part immensely, and Mr. Martin Harvey was so delightful to act with. His sympathetic temperament made my youthful efforts ever so much easier to me."
"Perhaps you have strayed into the mazes of playwriting?" She had spoken as one who appreciated a good literary play.
"No. I have done many foolish things, but I have never essayed becoming a dramatic author. My inclinations as a schoolgirl were towards writing sensational novelettes, full of daring adventures and romantic episodes. Fairy stories were also one of my literary specialties, and I found a large circle of readers among my schoolmates especially, as I generally made them or the teachers by name the heroines of my stories. It is extraordinary how popular I became in consequence," Miss Loftus remarked drily.
"You were brought up in convent schools, I believe. Did not the nuns deprecate your giving your mind up to imaginative work?"
"At these schools the nuns are very sensible and very human, and no better schoolmistresses exist than some of these charming ladies. You may be surprised to hear that one of our nuns actually composed a waltz, which was printed and privately circulated. I remember the circumstance well. I had to purchase a copy out of my own pocket, and had to send it to Miss Ellen Terry, as I had untruthfully boasted that I knew her well. You may imagine my astonishment when I received in return a charming letter of thanks accompanied by a cheque for two guineas, which she begged would be devoted to some useful work. After that I was indeed regarded as 'somebody' in my school."
"Well, I hope you have not altogether dropped the pen?"
"Not altogether. I have from time to time written a few short stories for the magazines as well as quite a number of songs; many of them for Miss May Irwin, whose name and voice have made them more popular than they deserve to be."
"I wonder if I might ask you to sing me something of your own composition before I go?". Without the slightest affectation Miss Loftus got up and placed herself at the piano.
"Of course you may. But I don't know at all what sort of song you prefer. You had better choose one. There are a few given on the back of that song, My Little Airs and Graces."
And I read the following titles: The Shadow Song (words by R. S. Stevenson); Where the Boats Go (words also by R. S. Stevenson); On my Lips there is a Sigh; Near Woodstock Town; and If I were You; the last three composed and written by Cecilia Loftus. However, it matters not what she sang to me - she sang several songs, and in most of them one detected the rare gift of singing with tears in the voice, stirring the heart with a strange sympathetic sadness.
by T. Hanson Lewis.
(Newark Daily Advocate, 29th May, 1895)
FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE
Justin Hartly McCarthy and Jr., and His Talented Wife, Cissy Loftus.
I watched and watched her. The drop curtain of the theater, a tawny painted glare of ponderous impossibilities, whereupon nymphs and satyrs were striving to make bicycles out of the timid clouds and escape a Neptune doing calisthenic gestures at them — the drop curtain rolled back, and from within a crimson portiere at the rear of the stage directly facing the audience came a little figure in simple, unostentatious white.
It was Cissie Loftus — Cissie Loftus, the favorite of the London Music hall; Cissie Loftus, with a brave little woman's history; Cissie Loftus, for whose sake a brave and honorable gentleman has written a noble record on this year 1895.
It was a curious audience that awaited her coming, an audience that recalled a German beer garden in a genuine German town. Steins of beer were going the rounds; clouds of smoke were rounding slowly into the thick air, taking the fantastic shapes of the features on the programme of the evening. There were laughter and talking, gossip and flirting, much going and coming, little tables where knots of people discussed divers things and divers drinks, a curious audience that indulged in brawny applause as one number succeeded the other in the evening's entertainment — if entertainment it could be called. The dwarf pugilists had disappeared, succeeded by an acrobatic performance, followed in its turn by a duet of Swiss mountaineers exhibiting their aimless wares. But, although the wares were aimless, so were not the airs they sang, one of which was a keynote to the great feature in the evening's amusement, the feature presently to appear — Cissie Loftus.
A huge No. 11 was run up on either side of the stage. The ponderous curtain lifted, the crimson portiere parted, and the little figure in simple white tripped forward. So modest and so simple was Cissie Loftus. The frock she wore — it was not a "gown" — reminded one of the frocks we used to dress our dolly in — the very best "frock" we put on the very best wax dolly when we had combed out the curly wig and when we held her very straight that the round, blue eyes might look out at you very straight, our very best Sunday doll. The little "frock" that Cissie Loftus wore came down neatly to the ankles — simply made, of fine cambric and lace. Her hair, brown, curly hair, fell neatly on either side of her face, brushed away in little curls from the forehead. She bowed sweetly to the big brawny audience, and as the music paused announced the first of her impersonations. Ada Rehan. It was admirably done. I could imagine I was again before the great lit garden scene in "Twelfth Night," and again hearing the leading voice of Viola: By innocence I swear, and by my youth. I have one heart, one bosom and one truth.
The impersonations followed rapidly. And I have learned her history. She was hard at work in the London Music hall when Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy, the son of the historian, saw her. In the words of our own James Russell Lowell "his case might be cited among the leading ones in support of the old poet's axiom that he never loved that loved not at first sight." Justin Huntly McCarthy sought not to find reasons of settled gravity for the happy institution of his heart. He knew that Cissie Loftus had won his heart. He knew that he had won her own. "Que faire? What is to be done?" saith the Frenchman, with a shrug of the shoulders and a lift of the Gallic system. "She is beneath me." "I am Justin Huntly McCarthy. Que faire? Two ways are open to me. What is to be done ?" said the honest bluff Briton. In the words again of our Lowell, "As a complete man, constant, generous, full of honest courage, as a hardy follower of love wherever it may lead me," "Thus, and thus only, will I do," said the noble English gentleman. And thus, and thus only, Justin Huntly McCarthy did. "I will not wreck nor stamp out her life. I will not wreck nor stamp out my own. No, not for all the sneer of Mayfair nor for ostracism from home and friends. Home and friends are where the heart lives ard loves. True love is the lever that lifts a man. We have won each other. Across the unknown our lives converged. We have read life's meaning in each other's eyes. Thus will I do."
Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy married Miss Cissie Loftus. Of course the sneer of Mayfair followed — that cold lip, curl of veneer above the volcanoes of wrecked lives within its polished limitations. But there is an old song that somehow can't die, no matter what Mayfair says — a song, too, made by a gentleman who lived in Mayfair long ago, a song that can't die while love and honor still stand as the essential attributes of manhood: I had not loved thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.
They are poor — Mr. and Mrs. Justin Huntly McCarthy. "Que importe? What does it matter?" said the noblest Frenchman. For the brave little woman helps her husband, and the noble gentleman struggles and works for a woman's sake."
LUCY CLEVELAND
(New York Times, 3rd July, 1909)
CISSY LOFTUS MRS. WATERMAN
Wed Chicago Doctor June 9 — Will Remain on Stage, Live in London.
Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES. LONDON, July 2.
Cecilia Loftus, whose wedding was announced in yesterday's NEW YORK TIMES, returned tonight to London and her engagement at the Coliseum after one day's absence.
Miss Loftus smilingly admitted that she was married. "The wedding," she said, "took place June 9 at the Registry Office in Kensington. My husband, is Dr. A. H. Waterman of Chicago, in which city I met him. A few weeks ago he came to London, rang me up on the telephone at Liverpool, where I was filling an engagement, and proposed to me. He told me not to hesitate, as every minute over three meant money. So I had to say yes. After another fortnight I will go to Dublin for a week. Then we will sail for America, where I shall fill an engagement, and then return with my husband to settle down for good in London. I shall remain on the stage. I could not tear myself away from my profession. I love it too well."
The secret of the wedding has been so well kept that no London paper has yet mentioned it. In an interview which the London Daily Mail will print to-morrow Miss Loftus, or Mrs. Waterman, will say: "If the wedding had taken place in America, every one in the same town would have known it the same day, but here in London people understand how to respect one's wishes for privacy."
Dr. Waterman, who is 32 years old, is a member of the American Medical Association, and for a short time practiced his profession in Chicago. He has traveled extensively during the last few years, but has spent much time in New York.