‘Her godmother must have been a prophet when she called her Kitty; at least, apropos of her present appearance in The Princess and the Swineherd and the Emperor’s New Clothes, played [since 23 December 1897] at the matinée show at Terry’s Theatre; for she is indeed Kittenish, in a delightfully droll, childish way, so that I do not know anybody who could don that pinafore just like her. I always felt she was skittish on the stage; now I take off the “s,” and find her realising Hans Andersen’s creation to the very life, and making Terry’s the best children’s entertainment one has seen for many a day.
‘She has not arrived at this point without an enormous amount of work. The first time I saw her was in the Crystal Palace Pantomime of 1893, but the provinces had applauded her for a long time before that in a whole series of parts, ranging from Puck, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Polly Eccles, to the series of Gaiety burlesques, [Little] Jack Sheppard [originally produced at the Gaiety, London, 26 December 1886, revived, 11 August 1894], Ruy Blas [; or, The Blasé Roue, originally produced at the Grand, Birmingham, 3 September 1889, and the Gaiety, London, 21 September 1889], Cinder-Ellen [Up Too Late, originally produced at the Princess’s, Melbourne, Australia, 22 August 1891, and the Gaiety, London, 24 December 1891], and the like. She burst in on London at a time when the town was ringing with another Loftus, the gentle Cissie, to wit, who had come upon us one July evening [in 1893] at the Oxford Music Hall, unannounced, yet successful on the spot. “Cissie” and “Kitty” - the names were inclined to be mixed up at first, but once you had seen the two there was no mistaking their respective talents. A little later on Kitty Loftus became famous with her “Gilbert and Sullivan Birthday Book,” but, clever actress though she be, she has not come to town yet. So Cissie and Kitty had their own way. In the Christmas of [18]94-5 Kitty and her sister, who is known as Rosie Leyton, figured as Eric and Rosamond in Mr. Barrett’s pantomime, Santa Claus, at the Lyceum [Theatre, London], and [on 2 March 1895] she joined Mr. Arthur Roberts at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre, to play the pretty little maid [Emma] who fell in love with Gentleman Joe, the hansom-cab driver. I shall not forget in a hurry how she bounded on to the stage to tell her assembled fellow-servants of her adventure with the driver, who nearly ran her down in crossing the street, and then he gave her a lift, and -

‘He drove her home in a spanking style,
And he said “Good-bye” wi’ a thoughtful smile;
And he said to her, said he, “Good-bye,”
And while he was saying it, winked his eye.

‘She brought the first life with her into the piece, and when Mr. Roberts himself appeared in that wonderful Newmarket coat, Gentleman Joe spanked more merrily than ever he had done on his tyred wheels. Indeed, she was such a success that she declined to rejoin Mr. Barrett in the following Christmas for his pantomime, and the law looked in upon her, as you may remember.

‘“I won’t play the part of a girl,” said she,
And she tried to make his Lordship see
That skirts and petticoats would not do,
They’d only show a trifle of shoe.

‘Now the strange thing is that, though she declined to play a girl’s part in Mr. Barrett’s pantomime, here, two years later, she is the girl at Terry’s, and Miss Louie Pounds is the Prince. I am sure that is a wise arrangement, for she lacks the stately dignity of Miss Pounds (the best principal boy I have ever seen), while she has all the kittenishness to be demanded of the little pinafored Princess, who -

‘Oftentimes gets tired of toys,
And wishes she were only
Like other little girls and boys,
And not so royal and lonely.

‘That, in a nutshell, is the secret of her present success. She is just like a real little girl in short frocks, prettily petulant, and inconsequent. As I say, I know nobody else who would do the same thing so delightfully, and that is why I give her picture here. Pantomime need never die as long as Kitty is with us.
(Pick-me-up, London, Saturday, 29 January 1898, p.279, with two photographs by Alfred Ellis of Kitty Loftus as the Princess at Terry’s Theatre)

Kitty Loftus died on 17 March 1927.