Cecilia "Cissie" or "Cissy" Loftus (22 October 1876 – 12 July 1943) was a Scottish actress, singer, mimic, vaudevillian, and music hall performer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Biography

When she was seventeen, she eloped with Justin Huntly McCarthy (1859–1936), an Irish writer, and associate of her friend and admirer Max Beerbohm. They married in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1893. The groom was twice as old as the bride. The marriage failed, and the couple divorced.

In 1908, she married Alonzo Higbee Waterman, an American doctor. By 1914, both her marriage and health were in a perilous state, and an acrimonious divorce ensued in 1920. Her health and the premature birth of their son, Peter, had made her increasingly dependent on alcohol and painkillers. In November 1922, she was arrested for possession of morphine and atropine.

Her fellow actress, Eva Moore bailed her for a surety of £100, and she was put on probation for twelve months at the Great Marlborough Street Magistrates Court. In 1923, she left Great Britain for good, and sailed to New York City to return to Broadway and pursue a career in Hollywood.