Show k w r- r r r t R y t. t t R iA I J y k tr Y 1 r ri t w j JI h i y x n 1 r bA r d 1 1 i w lt 5 3 r r r Y 4 i r f A r. r i 1 4 J w. w A r T aj J. J r Mt ac jr I 14 rpt rp aT t lF f 1 a z t. t r r r c ir t j t J J r. r w lf ta I 1 h i a t r A a i c. c a r r t S r t j f 1 I S s L 4 1 t f S Famous FamO unis English Actress C r e s r 1 NM Now in America Tells Story X of O Her Three Years Years' Struggle L 4 r With Narcotics arcO l n 9 J I Ended in Victory s F P. P s o l fi r FA DIFFIDENT wisp of a girl In a tl blue schoolgirl frock making an audience audience audience au au- weep with laughter laughter laughter-at at 20 20 i iS a S minute A drug addict under tinder arrest In a Lond London Lon Lon- 1 d d don n police court tired ashamed confessing confess confess- 1 ing herself a bankrupt in money and in it inI I hope A woman with the look in her eyes eye of one who has gazed on horrors horror's face itself a woman with the old girlish mirth J r about her mouth but the deeper note in it her voice that great suffering and greater victory b bring ing l' l In these three pictures you have therise the tha tharise i. i rise and fall of Cissie Loftus and Loftus-and and her 1 magnificent return For Cissie Loftus b has s come back Coming back all the way back from the pit whither drug addiction leads y Miss Loftus has achieved eved a thing which t m many ny physicians will tell you is r eible aible A man mat who gives himself up to t drugs m may may y perhaps shake off their grip these skeptics have admitted but ay a y woman who once gets the drug habit Is gone forever Always reticent to the point of shyness about herself and sensitive as only an i. i artist who is a genius can be sensitive Cissie Loftus had only one reason for telling the other day day- about her struggle against the poppy I 1 want drug ad ad- diets women diets women especially especially to to know that while their case ase may be desperate it is not beyond cure The well remembered voice grew a bit husky I have never been considered a p person with extraordinary will power To myself I seem weak weak weak There Ther 1 t r 1 was s every incentive to take drugs physic c eal cal pain and far more mental agony agony I I 1 took drugs for three years I stopped in three e days For weeks for months it was was was- was was-OJ washer her voice sank till the ii t words were a almost most inaudible flit Inaudible it was J hell But at last I won You cant can't Imagine what that means Im I'm like a person per per- son Ion newborn new For a moment there was silence And 1 what I have done other drug users can do t t. t G The words fell strangely in the blue blue- I i and gold and gold comfort of the home near River River- tr- tr side Bide Drive where the Englishwoman n is If staying with an actress actress friend On the ther r surface It was a chat with a famous star her recent return this upon to country t after nine years' years absence The sunny t morning the pretty appointments of the ther r room the sound of children romping upstairs upstairs upstairs up- up stairs made the police olice court degradation r L seem remote indeed Against a red vel velvet vet J I i t I lounging robe the pallor of the Lof Loftus us face was accentuated But Hut it was a face almost miraculously unchanged from that I of the schoolgirl who became first the Jk greatest imitator the world has ever r known and later an artist pronounced worthy to follow in Ellen Terrys Terry's footsteps foot- foot i f steps as as' leading woman for Sir Henry 6 Irving f f J pERHAPS there never had been so WO I Immediate and glorious a success as asi i that of little Marie Cecilia Brown whose r parentage was English though her birthplace birthplace birth birth- place I ce was Edinburgh Daughter of Marie Loftus a widely known English music hall artist the little Cissie displayed such talent as a mimic that at the age i. i J 1 f of fifteen she was put on to do an extra turn at a London variety house 1 Not less remarkable than her genius for mimicry was her innate reserve her refined even refined even bashful bashful manner Upon J the e burlesque stage where she was a first rte f u fn 4 i if f H f 9 h Y J. J fr i J i I aj t r k t dS 4 f s' s i fY I 4 rS l d t 1 s Cissie Loftus' Loftus life h has s been filled with triumphs and despair despair despair de de- but no height she has ever climb climbed d or depth she has ever plumbed has been so glorious with promise or so dank and dark with desolation desolation desolation desola desola- tion as her fight with and victory over the poppy Perhaps Perhaps Per Per- haps you remember her in If I Were King lifting Francois Villon out of the depths It was so she raised herself by sheer will power power tried out she he attracts not by her accordance accordance accordance ac ac- ac- ac with but her contrast to her surroundings one critic wrote this pale tranquil girl comes like an incarnation incarnation tion of candor and simplicity and the artless grace of youth She brings to the tho burlesque stage the coolness and calmness of the dawn Cissy Loftus later met the critic He was Justin Huntly McCarthy author of If I Were King and The Proud Prince two plays in which many years later she starred Cissy eloped with him one afternoon to Edinburgh where they were married She was just twenty then Because it was the marriage of genius with genius the match proved unhappy and Miss 1 Loftus obtained a divorce In New York six years later Ten years afterward in London she met Dr Alonzo Waterman the tho Chicago physician and married him When her son Peter James Barrie Barrio Waterman was born the theartist theartist theartist artist was at the height of both her stage success and her lifes life's happiness The Tho thought of this boy nam named d for Peter Pan Pan Pan-a. Pan a role which his mother had played with wide wid success success and and for his his' godfather Sir James Barrie Harrie the tho author was one thing that helped pull Cissie Loftus back from the drug habit For some reason however the girl who brought t laughter to millions could not find happiness herself It seemed as though fate designed her for joy and then cast her into the depths of suffer Buffer ing The second marriage e proved unhappy unhappy Unhappy un un- happy a also so an and ended in divorce This was the precipitating cause of of her down- down 1 U r Wi I L j P PI I L J f fi i 6 s sa 4 a t i U Lit To the drug addict our staid old world of right angles and curves becomes a amad amad amad mad jumble of reeling bui buildings dings and tossed wave pavements over which strange human half-human creatures reel and crawl mouthing an eerie language that is meaningless even to them fall Life seemed too much for her and drugs offered a release from memories During During these early years the shy young imitator had reached the reached the pinnacle of fame and of success Packed houses greeted her each night here and abroad L whether she played the mimic or a star role in legitimate drama Famous playwrights playwrights playwrights play play- wrights wrote plays especially for Ce Ce- cilia Faversham Sothern I Irving g himself himself him him- self were eager to secure her as leading woman Always she longed to interpret serious roles she roles she wanted to play Ophelia and Marguerite But always th the debts piling up through her generosity to unworthy unworthy unworthy un un- un- un worthy on hangers-on forced her back to the role which she held a trivial trivial- trivial one one one- that of the worlds world's inimitable imitator Yet the tho fresh girlish quality never slackened They said she was like liko a afield afield afield field of daisies on Broadway or a nightingale nightingale nightingale night night- in the Bowery She returned to London London- And then for nine years she dropped from sight In the first days while Cissie was new to the stage the man who later became her husband wrote this A Greek poet praising a statue of Ariadne i implored d the beholders not to come como too near lest by their touch they stir the image from slumber to the hurt of life It is to be hoped that daily contact with the wild business of burlesque will not arouse Miss Loftus from her simplicity her reserve her cool sweet inexperience and change chango her from what she Is into anything less modest and refined and admirable The Tho words are almost prophetic Daily contact with the wild business of grief and disillusion roused her to the hurt of life But there was a world war on and for years nobody thought to worry about this woman or where she had taken her broken ideals and tired spirit or what could be done to con comfort ort her Discouraged ged often physically sick she was discovered once playing in a theatre on a side street ill-health ill prevented pre prevented pre pre- vented regular employment even even if she sho had found the courage to look for it Things were pretty much at ebb those days At last always ys frail she grew seriously seriously seriously seri seri- ill Morphine was prescribed to relieve her suffering A nurse unwisely advised moro more and more of the drug and gave it to her whenever it was requested or oftener After she recovered recover recover- ed there were still hours of pain And Andone Andone Andone one day Cissie Loftus realized t that hat the drug habit had its grizzly hold on herI herI her I 1 didn't greatly care she said theother the theother theother other day the girlish girlish girlish girl girl- ish mouth in strange contrast with the thes s shadowed had 0 wed eyes the insidious thing about the drug habit you drift into it gradually and and and- once there there nothing nothing matters very much Mor Morphine phi n e was such a relief such a blessed escape from physical p pain a i n nand and mental torture Now and then I would half realize my state and try to rouse my my- self seli For a little while Id I'd go without drugs Again and again I tried to break the spell It seemed to have me have me-have have you ever had night nightmare are when you tried to escape from some t terror e r r o r you didn't know what and some invisible force prevented your struggling I felt felt felt- she clasped her arms around her body in inn a gesture eloquent of futile revolt revolt- I felt as though something unseen held me like this I was chained down in a sort of dream state It Is impossible to describe All the while I felt so Shamed So degraded And after every rebellion when I returned to the drug I felt so beaten D DEGRADED T You took up the word Surely in this case there was nomore no nomore nomore more degradation than in being run over by a motorcar But Cissie Loftus would not coddle herself It wasn't altogether my fault that I acquired the habit she admitted but It was my weak will that made me keep on It seemed after each return to the habit as if I could never escape There had been a somewhat hazy period drug Physical and mental discomfort was assuaged Nothing mattered mattered mattered mat mat- much But But the tho London police started a search for drug addicts Cis Cis- sio Loftus was arrested and taken into court She Sho Vho who had ad been a breath 9 of Have you ever had 1 nightmare w when h hen e n you tried to o escape from some terror you didn't k know ow what and some in invisible invisible in- in visible force prevented your struggling asks Cissie L Loftus o 0 f t u s. s That I was my experience felt as though something unseen held me I I was chained down J It was h hell l J faced the magistrate mag- mag springtime e on Broadway mag mag-j istrate with bowed head broken and and 3 defeated experience was The shock of that roused the remnant of spirit left j what said Cissie Loftus It showed me at at last as ashad nothing else could what drugs had done Here were the crossroads Either I went downhill from that court or I began to climb Nobody knows hoc hort steep that climb has been The magistrate remanded me for a s a week I went immediately to a physician physician physician j cian and asked whether I could be cured r J I found that there is only one cure stop using drugs No matter what you suffer no matter what the temptation stop them stop them You may leave off gradually the doctor said or do it almost at once In Ia Ia my new mood I thought it best t tj b the thing over with as quickly cs toS pos- pos sible So within three days I stopped I have never never known known such pain bodily or mentally I have never known such temptation to yield cG AND A ND this is exactly the danger point for the drug user who is trying I to reform If only he can resist the temptation to take something to relieve relieve the present moment he can win wis But the thought that there is something that would so BO swiftly bring relief this relief this is terrible The only thing to do is to i look beyond the present moment of t agony and see that pain endured now 4 means peace peace and comfort for the rest rest of li life When it seemed as if I couldn't bear beat the thing another instant I used to think how frightfully the soldiers suf suf- suf I used to remind myself that if they co could ld suffer like that in order to bring something good about then I 1 could certainly suffer to get r rid d of oC something horrible It was was hell ButI But I managed to hold out J The magistrate who remanded her herfor for a week put her on probation when at the end of the tho week he found she sha had given up the habit The same magistrate magistrate magistrate mag mag- bid her istrate was the last person to godspeed when she sailed from England a few weeks ago As the days went into weeks and months she resumed my craving grew fainter and the tha pain less severe sovere And now I have such a feeling of freedom freedom freedom free free- dom of release It Is truly like a are re re- re worth worth- birth Life is so different so while Im I'm cured A tremulous smile smil lifted tho the corners corners corners cor cor- ners of her mouth She spoke in a voice that sank almost almot to a whisper but bu buther buher buther her eyes gave a brave direct glance Its uIt's good to to be a able le to to look ook people 1 in the face again agam said Cissie Loftus j z i Co Copyright ht 1023 1959 Led Leiker er COm Company j I J. 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