Meghan and Harry

by Lady Colin Cambell

  Meghan’s first real break came about through her connections, not through her own efforts, and there is every possibility she would not have even got a reading had she not been put up for it by her good friend from Northwestern, Lindsay Roth, who had a casting job on an Anton Kutcher romantic comedy called A Lot Like Love. She pitched Meghan for a one word role, which she got, though not before Meghan informed Nigel Cole, the director, that she had read the script and thought she’d be better suited for a larger role. Although she did not get the role she sought, she did get the one which Lindsay Roth had suggested, and even managed to get it expanded so that she ended up having five times as much to say as before. This did not lead, as Meghan hoped, to further success, nor did her attempt to up the ante affect her relationship with Roth, to whom she remains close, but it was the beginning of her acquiring a reputation for ballsiness amongst those who liked her, and bumptiousness amongst those who did not.

  Her next role was in the sci-fi legal drama Century City, starring Ioann Gruffudd, Viola Davis and Nestor Carbonell. So poor were its ratings that only four of the nine episodes filmed were aired. Meghan, playing a party girl, delivered her one line in so hyper-animated a manner that she might well have been Richard Burton overplaying his early film roles until Elizabeth Taylor taught him to tone things down for the screen. A producer told me that her early desperation to succeed was one of the factors which prevented her from doing so. Later on, after she had become a duchess and narrated the Disney documentary Elephants Without Borders, this criticism would be echoed when her performance was slated as being over-eager to please, exaggerated, and schmaltzy. But it didn’t stop the British betting company Ladbrokes giving Meghan and the programme 20/1 odds to win the Feature Length Documentary category at next year’s Oscars.

  Desperation can be a great motivator, especially if you use it to fuel your perseverance. Meghan was ambitious enough to try out different tactics under the premise that if one thing didn’t work, another would. Keeping her father sweet helped to keep the wolf from the door, and so too did keeping her spirits up. A real party girl, she went out as often as she could, doubtless with the dual motives of enjoying herself and meeting people who might help her along the road to success. She lucked out one night in 2004 when she went to a ‘happening’ dive in West Hollywood where young up-and-coming producers, directors, writers, actors and actresses all congregated, in the belief that they were being more ‘real’ by avoiding more conventional (and expensive) establishments. Meghan heard someone whose voice caught her attention. He was bold, voluble, confident and charismatic. She also liked what she saw: a burly six-footer, with the body of an athlete and the reddish-golden locks of a surfer, whose bright blue eyes exuded certainty.

  Trevor Engleson had the persona of a man on his way up. Born in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, in October 1976, he was educated in his hometown before studying journalism at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He was also as markedly ambitious and driven as Meghan. He had started off on the lowest rung of the ladder, informing the producer Alan Riche that he wanted to do what he did. Riche suggested that he first work as an agent, and got him a job at the Endeavor Talent Agency. Trevor, however, blew it when his boss, the film script agent Chris Donnelly, was away and he was caught sending out unsolicited scripts on the agency’s letterhead. He was dismissed, but soon got another job as an assistant to his university alumnus Nick Osborne and his partner Jeffrey Zarnow at O/Z Films. He admitted they ‘needed a hustler who could bring food to the table,’ which Trevor did so successfully that when Osborne founded Underground Films, his assistant followed him, before finally taking the company over.

  One thing led to another, and before the night was through, Meghan had hooked up with Trevor. Their romance thereafter moved at a quick and decisive pace. She moved in with him before a year was out. This suited her well. Living with Trevor, who was earning good money, took the financial pressure off her, but she couldn’t live off him entirely, so she had a succession of jobs while waiting for her big break. These included acting as a hostess in a Beverly Hills restaurant, teaching gift-wrapping in a local store, and working as a calligraphist doing invitations and envelopes for special events. She was proud of doing the invitations for the singer Robin Thicke and the actress Paula Patton’s wedding in June 2005, and claimed that calligraphy not only earned her good money but also gave her something to do while waiting around at auditions. It also set her apart from the other hopefuls. She felt it was a ‘classy’ thing to do, and by this time Meghan was well on the way to developing a ‘classy’ persona. Some people found her demeanour ‘sophisticated’, while others regarded her as ‘pretentious’ and ‘full of crap’, in an early indication of the way Meghan would divide, and has continued to divide, opinion. Although the producers of Suits sang her praises publicly, another Hollywood producer told me that Meghan Markle was not ‘well regarded in the industry,’ but now that she is the Duchess of Sussex, ‘people who wouldn’t give her the time of day’ are now happy to consider doing business with her. Success does breed success, and I know from friends of hers that ‘Meg is focused on success and doesn’t really care if people don’t like her. As long as she’s getting what she wants, they can feel how they please.’ This is not a view that others agree with. They say that Meghan loathes rejection, and while she pretends not to mind it, she ‘nurses a slight like no one else.’

  Trevor and Meghan ended up living in a series of elegant rental houses, including one on Hilldale in West Hollywood and a colonial-style two storey in Hancock Park, a historic area in central Los Angeles developed by the oil magnate/philanthropist George Alan Hancock. Theirs was but one of the many distinctive, architect designed 1920s houses which make the area as desirable as it is, bounded by Wilshire Boulevard on the south and Melrose Avenue on the north.

  By the time Trevor and Meghan linked up, he was on his way to becoming a successful producer and talent manager. He lived and breathed work. He spent his whole life reading scripts, pushing for sales, or partying. Meanwhile, Meghan lurched from rejection to rejection, with only sops in the form of cameos and walk-on parts to provide encouragement that persistence might win the day. She ‘encouraged’ Trevor to put her up for jobs, but he usually refused. He would only propose her when he thought she was well suited.

  In his own way, Trevor Engelson had integrity. This, according to friends, would ultimately become a cause of resentment for Meghan. She found it difficult to forgive her boyfriend when he overlooked her for roles which she thought were perfect for her. Though she was forced to respect his viewpoint that putting her forward for roles he regarded as unsuitable would result in rejection for her and undermine his credibility in the industry, he was inadvertently feeding a cold fury which would come back to chill him to his bones in the future.

  Meghan’s rage was something which she kept well concealed until she started writing an anonymous blog called The Working Actress. In it, she revealed how distressing she found it when she was turned down, or not considered, for roles which she knew she was perfect for, even though no one else agreed with her. She wrote about the distressing times she took to her bed crying her eyes out with a bottle of wine and bread for comfort, because she had not got some role she yearned for. Her hunger for success was never exceeded by the pain of rejection and the frustration of not being acknowledged the way she yearned to be, but the blog showed that it was a close-run thing. In it, she was open about her self-pity and pain, and while she did not spell it out, beneath that lay fury.

  2006 was a dispiriting year for both Trevor and Meghan. He had been the Executive Producer of Zoom, a $75.6m budget superhero action movie/comedy starring Courtney Cox, Chevy Chase and Rip Torn. Despite their high hopes, the film took the princely sum of $12.5m at the box office, was universally panned as being dull and anything but funny, and had the further distinction of its lead actor, Tim Allen, being nominated for a Razzle Award in the Worst Actor category.

  At t
his time, Meghan had landed a role as a briefcase girl on the game show Deal or No Deal. This brought her a steadier and larger income than she had ever had, but was, by her own account, a daily reminder that she was nowhere near where she wanted to be professionally.

  By the following year, things were looking up for Trevor once more. He co-produced Licence to Wed, a romantic comedy starring Robin Williams, then started work as Executive Producer on the Sandra Bullock/Bradley Cooper comedy All About Steve. Meanwhile, Meghan bounced along on the bottom of the barrel, getting yet more bit parts until in 2010 Trevor landed the job of producer of Remember Me, a melodrama starring British heartthrobs Robert Pattinson and Pierce Brosnan. Finally, Trevor offered her a part, and while it was not a large one, she nevertheless had hopes that it would lead to bigger things. It did not, and not because the film was panned for its ending, which involved 9/11, but because Meghan’s attributes remained unacknowledged.

  Despite this, she remained hopeful, and her relationship with Trevor was stronger than ever. According to Nikki Priddy, who remained Meghan’s closest friend while also having become a close friend of Trevor’s, they were so completely in love, so well suited, that she could never have imagined either of them with anyone else.

  Time, however, was running out for Meghan. She was approaching thirty. She had not yet made it. She had no ambitions to become a character actress though she hankered after having her acting talent recognised as if she were one of the greats like Eleanora Duse, Anne Bancroft or Patty Duke. She wanted to be a star. And she was no nearer achieving her objective than she had been when she had started out acting in school. Then along came the part for which nature, nurture, and her own character and personality made her ideal. Rachel Zane was a tough, ball breaking, bold, elegant, standoffish, competent, intelligent, but flawed paralegal at an upscale law firm. She had to be good looking, but not so good looking that she stole the show. She had to be sexy enough to capture the love interest of one of the stars, Patrick J Adams, who was playing Mike Ross, but not so sexy that she came across as tarty. She had to be refined enough to convey a background of privilege. She had to be cool and convincing, for Rachel had garnered the respect of her colleagues, all of whom admired her legal ability even though she could not pass her law exams.

  Meghan’s agent Nick Collins of the Gersh Agency had put her up for the role, and while she thought her reading had gone so badly that she asked him to arrange a second one, it had actually gone well. ‘They loved my take on Rachel and they were putting together a deal for me. It was a really good lesson in perspective. I think we are always going to be our own worst critics,’ she said, an observation she would have done well to remember when she became the Duchess of Sussex and things started to go badly awry for her.

  According to Jeff Wachel, co-president of the USA Network, ‘One of the things that we needed at the beginning of Suits was Patrick’s character to come in as the hottest thing in town: he’s brilliant, has a photographic memory and fakes his way into being a lawyer and then comes up against this girl who turns out to be the love of his life. We needed somebody who had a real authority to shut him down and still be the coolest thing around.’ Finally, Meghan’s characteristics in all their contradictory complexity had come to her rescue.

  When Nick Collins rang Meghan to tell her that she had got the part, she was ecstatic, but reservedly so. She had previously had her hopes dashed when stardom had seemed assured and, lest history repeat itself, she now refused to let her expectations run away with her the way they had in the past. Nevertheless, she looked forward to the filming of the pilot in New York in autumn. Neither she nor Patrick J. Adams could be sure whether it was a good omen that they had once worked together on another pilot: one which amounted to nothing. This time, however, all the ingredients for success were there.

  Nor was success limited to what was happening on the screen. At the end of the shoot, Meghan and Trevor flew to Belize, where he asked her to marry him. She accepted without demur. She was ‘marrying up’, her brother Tom Jr observed approvingly, but Trevor was also nailing her down in case she became the star she had always wanted to be.

  Between the proposal and the marriage, Meghan received the news that filming for the first series of Suits would begin in Toronto on the 25th April 2011. The only downside was that she and Trevor had to commute between there and California, but she was intent on making her relationship with him and the series work, and happily threw herself into both. The show aired on the 23rd June to a positive reception from the critics and audience. It was stylish, entertaining, and sophisticated, and amongst the many elements that played well was her passionate on-screen relationship with Patrick J Adams. Meghan the woman was sweet and vulnerable superficially while being tough beneath the surface, and this combination of softness and hardness gave her an authority that was perfect for the role. She and Patrick definitely had chemistry together, both on screen and off, and he explained that he and Meghan were extremely close ‘because we were the youngest people in the cast and both came in with the least experience. We grew up together over the course of the show.’

  Meghan would later recount how stressful but satisfying she found the demands placed upon her in this, her first successful show. She was growing not only as an actress but also as a budding star. There were the demands of publicity, hair, make up, wardrobe, interacting with the cast and crew as well as everyone else whose path crossed hers. She deliberately retained a certain reserve behind a friendly and approachable facade. She was intent on being acknowledged as a team player, and made sure that her charm was never superseded by displays of ego.

  In the midst of all this activity, she was also planning her wedding to Trevor, which was due to be held on the 10th September 2011 at the picturesque Ocho Rios hotel, Jamaica Inn, whose main feature is one of the finest beaches on the island. Although Meghan availed herself of the services of its in-house wedding planner, she kept her finger firmly on the pulse. ‘She is a control freak,’ a member of the staff said. ‘She was very exacting in her demands.’ Although she was perfectly pleasant, she left no room for doubt. What she wanted, she intended to get. Because the Jamaicans were more used to being micromanaged and challenged than the staff at Windsor Castle, her conduct was not viewed as being out of line, so she did not ruffle feathers the way she would later on do with her second wedding. She and Trevor had taken over the entire hotel for a four day blast, paid for in part by Tom Sr. The least part of the event would turn out to be their wedding ceremony, which ‘took all of fifteen minutes.’ The rest of the time was dedicated to hard partying and fun activities such as wheelbarrow races.

  Both Meghan and Trevor were now earning good money. Suits had been commissioned for its second series and while Trevor was treading water with Amber Alert, a film that would go nowhere, Meghan was thrilled to be marrying him. The wedding she was planning would be a reflection not only of the closeness of their bond but also of their success.

  Although Meghan had always aimed at presenting herself as both cool and classy, she very nearly came a cropper when she had the bright idea of distributing ganja spliffs in specially-made crocus bags inscribed with Shh…. to all of her guests. Notwithstanding its reputation as producing the finest marijuana in the Western Hemisphere, Jamaica had an ambivalent attitude to its main export. There was considerable pressure from the American authorities upon the Jamaican Government to stamp out the ganja trade, and using, possessing, distributing or trading in the drug was punishable by a long prison sentence. They were very lucky no one reported them to the Police, otherwise their festivities would have come to a quick halt and they would have ended up in a Jamaican jail. Moreover, Meghan was so cool that she didn’t bother to tell her guests what was in the crocus bags. She expected them to know. Not all of them did, and one of them took it back to the US. Only after getting through customs did they discover how Meghan had inadvertently made them into drug smugglers. They were anything but amused.

  That aside, Meg
han and Trevor’s wedding was a success. It established them among their circle as ‘cool, happening, and classy’ hosts, and as Trevor returned to LA and Meghan to Toronto, Nikki Priddy and all their other friends confidently expected them to remain married forever.

  During the filming of the second series of Suits, however, Meghan’s life experienced another upgrade. Toronto is a much smaller and more cohesive city than LA. It also offers tax breaks to the film industry, so has a vibrancy out of all proportion to its location. An ensemble actress in a burgeoning cable series such as Suits is of far greater consequence there than she would be in the film capital of the world. If she is so inclined, she will soon be mixing with all of Canada’s elite. And Meghan was very much inclined. By the third series, she had met and become friends with Jessica Mulroney, stylist wife of Ben Mulroney, whose father had been Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and Jessica Gregoire and her husband Justin Trudeau. His father had been the former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his mother Margaret Sinclair, the hippie First Lady whose widely reported affairs with Ted Kennedy and Mick Jagger rook place against the drug-addled backdrop of Studio 54 and scandalised Canadians and Americans in equal measure, while her fling with Fidel Castro has haunted her son Justin, whose resemblance to the Communist dictator has been much commented upon. Nevertheless, Margaret Trudeau would end up enjoying the distinction of being the only Canadian woman to have been the wife and mother of Prime Ministers, for Justin, who had been a Member of Parliament for Papineau since 2008, became leader of the Liberal Party in 2015 and Prime Minister in 2017.