Her teacher, noticing that she had stopped completing the form, came over to her desk. Meghan admitted her consternation. The teacher told her to check the box for Caucasian—“because that’s how you look, Meghan.”
Meghan couldn’t do it. She put down her pen. Not, she said, as an act of defiance, but as a symptom of her confusion.
“I couldn’t bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So I didn’t tick a box. I left my identity blank—a question mark, an absolute incomplete—much like I felt.”
When Meghan got home she told her father what had happened at school that day. She had never before seen him angry; but that night she watched “the blotchiness of his skin crawling from pink to red. It made the green of his eyes pop and his brow was weighted at the thought of his daughter being prey to ignorance. Growing up in a homogenous community in Pennsylvania, the concept of marrying an African American woman was not [in] the cards for my dad. But he saw beyond what was put in front of him in that small-sized (and perhaps, small-minded) town, and he wanted me to see beyond that census placed in front of me. He wanted me to find my own truth.”
Thomas Markle then told his daughter something that has stayed with her for the rest of her life. He said, “If that happens again, you draw your own box.”
TWO HUNDRED AND forty-five credits are required to graduate from Immaculate Heart’s high school, plus four years of community service. Among the requisite theology courses is a semester in “Contemporary Moral Issues.” Students can also avail themselves of Advanced Placement courses in the traditional liberal arts classes, as well as computer science. “Pandas Explore” is an extracurricular educational travel program for the students, from the Close Up domestic excursions to New York and Washington, DC, to international destinations such as Rome and Belize.
Because Meghan graduated from a school that offers such a banquet of academics and extracurricular activities, it’s all the more insulting that some members of the British press and racist Internet trolls later felt compelled to paint her, condescendingly, viciously, and incorrectly, as some sort of slum bunny.
Meghan was always passionate about social justice, according to Maria Pollia, one of her former theology teachers and a woman Meghan has also numbered among her mentors.
Pollia taught her young students that “life is about putting others’ needs above your own fears,” a lesson that Meghan took to heart that first day she entered the Skid Row soup kitchen and one that has remained with her ever since.
Ms. Pollia recollected that Meghan also “had this compassion for homeless people, for gang members, for people who were on the margins of society. She took our social justice teaching very seriously and wanted to not just study about it but to be a part of making the world a more open and welcoming place for those that the rest of society had ignored.” Pollia taught the girls of Immaculate Heart that people in soup kitchens and shelters were hungry not just for food but for human contact and to be respected as a fellow human being. Just saying “good morning” to them was really important.
Christine Knudsen, who taught one of Meghan’s senior electives classes, remembered Meghan’s spunkiness and feistiness, along with her passion for singing and acting. But there was more to her even then—an inner depth “which kind of moved into all of her other subjects.”
Meghan was fourteen years old when her best friend Suzy Arkadani was called to the principal’s office. Suzy’s father, a garage owner, had been shot by a deranged Vietnam veteran who had just murdered his own family. The man had burst into Mr. Arkadani’s garage and sprayed the place with bullets, and now Arkadani was fighting for his life. Meghan, as close to Suzy as a family member, was the first of Suzy’s classmates to comfort her and was the only one who accompanied Suzy to the hospital. Meghan sat with the family by Suzy’s father’s bedside, praying he would pull through. Matt Arkadani’s injuries left him paralyzed; but Suzy’s mother, Sonia, credits his survival at least in part to Meghan’s prayers and devotion to the family in their hour of need.
Years earlier, Sonia had taped Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding to Prince Charles on her VCR. She showed it to Suzy and Meghan, who later became as impressed by Diana’s humanitarian work as by her glamour. According to Sonia Arkadani, the teens would see stories about Diana on television and choose to follow her example in their own way, by volunteering in a soup kitchen or collecting clothes and toys for children who were less fortunate than they were.
MEGHAN’S LIFELONG INTEREST in philanthropy was also sparked by the trips she took with her mother to remote and impoverished parts of the globe. It was important to Doria, who worked as a travel agent for a time to make ends meet, that Meghan gain the experience and understanding of how others lived.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, Meghan watched children not much younger than she was, playing in the dirt roads and peddling Chiclets for a few extra pesos to help feed their families. She was only ten when her mother took her to Jamaica. But they didn’t go to the five-star Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios, where Meghan would eventually wed her first husband. Instead, Doria took her to see the slums. For a little girl from California’s San Fernando Valley, it was an awakening. Meghan’s brown eyes welled with tears and fear.
“Don’t be scared, Flower,” Doria told her daughter. “Be aware, but don’t be afraid.”
In a prescient snapshot taken in 1996 when Meghan visited London with Ninaki Priddy, her best friend at the time, the California girls posed in their summer clothes and sunglasses in front of Buckingham Palace. Most American tourists in London have a similar photo.
But only one would grow up to marry the grandson of the Queen of England.
As a high schooler, Meghan could resemble the proverbial girl next door in a cardigan with flat-ironed hair or could be completely free spirited and bohemian. In a striking photo taken on one of the campus lawns with five of her classmates, Meghan poses with untamed curls, exhibiting the same wide smile and zest for life that she still has twenty years later. Five of the students are wearing the full Immaculate Heart uniform of cardigans or sleeveless vests, white blouses, and pleated skirts, with white socks and sneakers. Meghan is the only one who dared to be different; she isn’t wearing a sweater over her blouse. In fact, she seems to have given her shirt a blouson effect, so that of all six girls in the snapshot, she alone has made the effort to transform a Catholic school uniform into a fashion statement.
A friend who knew Meghan at Immaculate Heart recollected that she “was bubbly, optimistic, and positive. She was also very focused and had her eye on the prize—she knew where she wanted to go to college and she knew she wanted to do drama.” Meghan was even a TA in her high school drama classes. “Most kids our age wouldn’t have felt as confident in their skills.” Her old friend added, “She had the talent and focus to back it up; and you could tell she knew the work it would take and she was willing to [do it]. She was a role model and was inspiring. She had an ability to be effortlessly kind.”
Catherine Knight, another Immaculate Heart classmate who had known Meghan since middle school, chose three words to describe her old friend: “kind, generous, enthusiastic,” all borne out in the lengthy bubbly compliment Meghan gave Ms. Knight when she signed her yearbook one year.
“Harry is lucky to have her,” enthused yet another old friend from Meghan’s high school days. “No one who knows Meghan could have a bad word to say about her. She is the kindest person, and incredibly smart. She doesn’t buy into Hollywood fakeness. She’s a genuinely good person who cares about others.”
As Meghan had wanted to be an actress from an early age, she took several drama classes and performed the leading role in many of the school plays produced in Immaculate Heart’s gymnasium, including the role of Daddy Warbucks’s secretary Grace in the musical Annie and that of an aspiring actress in Stage Door. Former classmates recall that Meghan’s rendition of the song “Nothing” from A Chorus Line, about transcending the damag
e done by a negative high school drama teacher, was unquestionably of a professional caliber. Meghan also scored the lead in Damn Yankees at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, a neighboring all-boys school. She was what is known in theater parlance as a triple threat—an actress-singer-dancer. Meghan even had tap-dancing chops, which she put to use in Immaculate Heart’s 1998 production of the British musical Stepping Out, about a group of working-class Englishwomen (and one man) whose lives become improved in every way by attending a weekly tap class in a dingy church social hall.
Maria Pollia remembered that Meghan was highly determined to become a success. It was “not a frivolous pursuit, not ‘oh, I’m going to be a movie star.’ ”
An academy that attracts the children of well-heeled, if not celebrity parents, also attracted instructors with Hollywood credits of their own. Immaculate Heart’s drama teacher Gigi Perreau’s three-decade film career began at the age of two when she played Greer Garson’s daughter in Madame Curie. Speaking to The Telegraph, a British daily, Ms. Perreau had nothing but praise for her former student. “A lovely girl even then; and very hardworking. She was very dedicated. I knew she would be something special.”
Ms. Perreau not only taught Meghan, she directed her. Unlike some students, who get bored with the necessarily repetitive weeks or months of rehearsal, or whose stage fright gets the better of them in performance, if Meghan had any opening-night jitters, she managed to transcend them. According to Ms. Perreau, “We never had a moment’s problem with her; she was spot-on, learnt her lines when she had to,” and was “very dedicated, very focused.” Of Meghan’s performance in Annie, Ms. Perreau recalled, “She was particularly delightful . . . I remember her being very excited and nervous about her song.”
Years later, when Meghan and Prince Harry spoke to the BBC after they announced their engagement, Meghan explained to the interviewer Mishal Husain that becoming a member of the royal family would give her an even bigger “voice” when it came to her humanitarian work. So how might that pan out; what could be a bigger voice than acting? Harry joked, “Sing!”
Meghan burst out laughing and demurred, responding, “Can you imagine? No, I’m not a singer.” But to win those leads in her high school musical productions when Meghan was in her teens, she must have had a creditable soprano with a strong “belt” voice, as it’s known in the theater.
Certainly the experience of watching the rehearsals and performances of soap and sitcom actors every day after school provided both a foundation and a grounding, not only for Meghan’s technique, but for her work ethic.
Meghan’s father, already an award-winning television lighting designer by then, would volunteer to light Immaculate Heart’s school plays, somewhat akin to a dad who’s a Major League slugger helping coach the softball team.
Inevitably, there were a few snide comments that Meghan won her roles (whatever Meghan wanted, Meghan got, to paraphrase Lola in Damn Yankees) because of her father’s A-list volunteerism.
One of the detractors was her own half sister Samantha, seventeen years Meghan’s senior. Samantha, an attractive blue-eyed blonde who had lived for a time with her mother in rural New Mexico after Roslyn and Thomas Markle went their separate ways, also had ambitions to become a professional actress. But proximity is an element in the equation; and there’s a vast difference between growing up in New Mexico and in the heart of Hollywood.
However, it wasn’t always a certainty that Meghan would eventually become a professional actress. She was also inspired by Immaculate Heart’s humanitarian focus. “I think I was able to share a lot of my theories about giving back when you’ve been very fortunate in the industry as I was,” said Ms. Perreau. “Hopefully many of my students got that compassion and desire to do something worthwhile with their lives. I wasn’t sure which direction Meghan would ultimately be going on because she also had interests in humanitarian activities, and she seemed to be extremely well rounded and focused on her future.”
Ambition is not a dirty word. Every day Meghan saw firsthand how it paid off for the sitcom and soap opera actors and those who worked in the technical aspects of the film and television industry. She recognized what was required to succeed, in both time and tenacity. And she was more than willing to put in the work.
In Meghan’s senior yearbook, the words that her classmates used to describe her were “classy girl.” The phrase was printed on the frame that rimmed her California license plate as well.
She agonized over what to choose as a yearbook quote, as if it were her epitaph. It became a dead heat between “Shoot for the moon. Even if you don’t hit it, you’ll land among the stars,” and a chestnut often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: “Women are like tea bags. They don’t realize how strong they are until they’re in hot water.” Meghan ended up selecting the first option. In retrospect, she trusted her gut all along.
In 1998, the Homecoming Week theme in November paid homage to fashions of the past. Students strutting the halls in Fonzie-style leather motorcycle jackets from the sitcom Happy Days mingled with classmates channeling the 1960s in bell-bottoms and hippie fringe, seventies disco duds, and the wide shoulders and leggings of those who were nostalgic for their fairly recent childhood of the 1980s and just wanted their MTV.
During halftime at the Homecoming football game on Friday night, seventeen-year-old Meghan was crowned Homecoming Queen, proving even then that she could wear a tiara with poise and grace. She was chosen in a two-step process: boys from local private schools nominated girls from other private schools, who were then interviewed by a committee that made the final selection. When all of the girls in the court were brought out to the fifty-yard line during halftime, the name of the Homecoming Queen was announced from among them.
Meghan walked a red carpet flanked by her court and a phalanx of knights from their brother school St. Francis High, with swords in hand. After the ceremony, the entire court processed off the field in classic convertibles.
How classically Southern California.
That evening, Meghan posed for her Homecoming Dance photo in a pale blue satin strapless gown, cradling a long-stemmed bouquet. Beside her stood her prom date Danny Segura, a handsome dark-haired St. Francis High student. Speaking in 2017 about the teenage Meghan, Danny called her “awesome,” and he would use the same word to describe the Meghan of today.
Meghan encouraged Danny to audition for his first high school musical when he was fifteen. “I was hooked from that point,” he reminisced. Although he was her date for the Homecoming Dance, they were just friends. Danny still works in theater, and he and Meghan still remain friends. She also dated his older brother Luis when she was in high school. Luis, who was never bitten by the theater bug, eventually married, had two kids, and went into real estate.
Even then Meghan was keenly aware of the minutest details of style, so the V-shape of her sparkling necklace was a mirror image of her glittering tiara. She never could have dreamt that it would be another twenty years before she would officially be permitted to don a tiara by marrying into the House of Windsor! According to royal protocol, only married women are permitted to wear one.
The theme of Saturday night’s Homecoming Dance was “The Glory of the Knight,” paying tribute to the St. Francis team, who had been victorious under the Friday-night lights in the football game against the Chaminade Eagles from a rival school. The St. Francis Knights boogied the night away with the pandas of Immaculate Heart to the techno beats of the 1980s, with a few slow dances thrown in to kindle some chastely romantic swaying.
The lessons Immaculate Heart inculcated in Meghan paid off so well that she has become an inspiration to the students who came after her, the girls who now roam the white-painted hallways ringed with shoulder-height blue lockers.
They refer to Meghan as “one of our sisters.” A curly-haired blonde said she was proud of her because “she knows what she’s saying; and she’s definitely not afraid to say what she needs to say, and to stand up for whatever’s right
.” Another blonde agreed that “we’re following in her footsteps.”
According to Callie Webb, the school’s director of communications, they “were so proud of her speech in 2015 to the UN, as a UN Women ambassador, about gender equality,” which the students watched in their ethics class.
Public speaking may come naturally to Meghan, but it’s also part of the Immaculate Heart curriculum. The current students are proud to claim a poised and well-spoken future princess as an alumna and are as excited about Meghan’s activism as they are about her future as a member of the royal family, having avidly followed every detail of her romance with Prince Harry since the news broke. No matter how early these Los Angelenos have to wake up to watch the royal wedding of one of their own, they’ll be glued to the television with a cup of tea.
It’s something else Meghan and Harry have in common: a single-sex secondary school education at an elite preparatory academy that focuses on instilling honor, integrity, and morality in impressionable young minds and hearts.
The Playing Fields of Eton
Acting Out
Charles knew that Harry needed a breather. Managing their public and private grief for Diana was a daunting process. William and Harry had moved into York House with their father; and he was struggling at being both papa and mummy to them. It had been up to Tiggy to help the boys navigate the world in the wake of their mother’s death. She accompanied them as they followed the legendary Beaufort hunt on foot and wandered the empty rooms of Kensington Palace, selecting which of Diana’s personal effects they wished to retain as mementos. Harry initially chose his mum’s engagement ring with its stunning eighteen-carat sapphire surrounded by diamonds; and William selected her Cartier Tank watch; but the princes agreed that whichever of them got engaged first would give the ring to his fiancée, so a swap might happen in the future.
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