Like most actors and others who have chosen a career in the arts, one doesn’t become an overnight sensation. Most performers would consider it a privilege just to secure steady bookings, defining a reliable paycheck as “success.” Like sharks, one must keep swimming or die. Stardom is elusive and is achieved by less than 1 percent of the members of the Screen Actors Guild or the Actors’ Equity Association.
Therefore, it’s wise to have additional skills because one will inevitably end up in “survival jobs.” Waiting tables. Office temping. Teaching Pilates. Tending bar. Parking cars. Meghan put all those penmanship classes in Catholic school to excellent use by becoming a freelance calligrapher. She told Matt Goulet of Esquire.com, “I’ve always had a propensity for getting the cursive down well,” so to pay her bills while she made the rounds of auditions, Meghan was hired to hand-letter the celebrity correspondence for the luxury fashion design house Dolce & Gabbana during the busy December holiday season. “I would sit there with a little white tube sock on my hand so no hand oils got on the card. . . . I’m glad that in the land of no one seeming to appreciate a handwritten note anymore, that I can try to keep that alive.” Paula Patton and Robin Thicke also tapped Meghan to do the calligraphy for their wedding invitations.
It’s a skill set few have, which made it bankable; so the job was far more lucrative than busing tables and far less physically punishing. Meghan still appreciates the beauty and personal touch of a handwritten (by anyone) letter or card. Another life lesson she received from her dad was to always handwrite a thank-you note. On her lifestyle website The Tig, Meghan wrote about how excited she becomes when she receives handwritten correspondence in the mail. Years after working as a freelance calligrapher, when Meghan was a successful actress on Suits, she half joked during an interview that she probably still has some of her business cards floating around; and that one of these days someone will contact her to ask if she can pen the invites to their son’s bar mitzvah.
It would take months to write eight hundred of them, but it would be in keeping with Meghan’s personality to add that individual touch by addressing the envelopes for her own wedding invitations.
Most of Meghan’s “dues paying” early in her career came in the form of walk-on parts and minor speaking roles—guest spots—on long-running television series, which most actors just call working. When she was still in college, she booked her first part—a day’s work as an “Under Five” on General Hospital, where her father had earned a Daytime Emmy for lighting design. But a U/5 job enables a performer to secure a coveted union card; without one, it’s a near impossibility to even get an audition in Hollywood.
From 2006 to 2007, Meghan appeared in thirty-four episodes as a briefcase girl on the NBC game show Deal or No Deal, hosted by Howie Mandel. The gig required her to hold a silver case containing anywhere from one penny to one million dollars, and to exude plenty of personality and look terrific while wearing “uncomfortable and inexpensive five-inch heels,” plunging necklines, and short skirts.
It was steady employment, but it was hardly high art. Pressured not to gain any weight, the girls, among them future supermodel Chrissy Teigen, were inspected like sides of meat every morning. In order to achieve the on-screen pinup look the show’s producers desired, some girls were told to pad their bras and tape their breasts, pushing them together to create the illusion of larger boobs or deeper cleavage.
Tameka Jacobs, another briefcase girl at the time, explained the daily routine to The Express in an interview on December 4, 2017. “[A] producer would stand on a chair and have us all line up. He’d look at us and say, ‘More hair on her,’ or ‘Fix her boobs.’ ” It’s doubtful that this conduct would survive the #metoo sexual harassment test today.
Ms. Jacobs also said that Meghan clearly didn’t think too much of the cheesy micromini dresses the women were compelled to wear on set. “She’d be looking at you, like, ‘Really?’ It was clear she was thinking ‘Girl, these are short.’ ”
According to Ms. Jacobs, Meghan didn’t party hard with others on Deal who liked to cut loose. “She always held herself high, a princess even then.”
Unlike Harry, who was still dancing like mad to erase the pain of not having had a mummy to guide him, Meghan had a free-spirited if traditionally strict mother to keep her on the straight and narrow path to success. When it came to boys, Doria had cautioned her daughter, “Honey, remember—never give the milk away for free.” While the briefcase girls were blowing off steam for a few hours, trying to forget the humiliating way they were earning the rent, with a producer who ogled each girl and demanded they resemble miniskirted centerfolds, Meghan’s goal was to win an Oscar or be on Broadway.
She told Esquire.com, “I would put [Deal or No Deal] in the category of things I was doing while I was auditioning to try to make ends meet.” From the sublime to the ridiculous, so to speak, “I went from working in the U.S. embassy in Argentina to ending up on Deal.”
But the experience provided perspective. “It helped me to understand what I would rather be doing. So if that’s a way for me to gloss over that subject, then I will happily shift gears into something else.” Meghan was tenacious and never expected instantaneous stardom. Her pragmatic philosophy about any endeavor, including show business, was “Don’t give it five minutes if you’re not prepared to give it five years, be kind to yourself, and Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Her career careened from a number of onetime guest spots on popular television series like Castle, 90210, and CSI: NY, where she played a rich man’s maid dressed in Frederick’s of Hollywood–style lingerie, to playing an FBI agent on Fringe, to small roles in the big-budget features Remember Me and Horrible Bosses. Meghan didn’t even receive screen credit for her appearance in Get Him to the Greek.
But by this time, she was dating a man who was as ambitious as she was.
Trevor Engelson was born on October 23, 1976, in Great Neck, a tony suburb of Long Island, not far from New York City. After attending the University of Southern California, he remained in Hollywood and worked his way up in the film industry, starting out the way most aspiring directors and producers do—as a lowly production assistant. A PA’s day often consists of standing around with a walkie-talkie awaiting instructions from a superior, and wrangling dozens of background actors.
Meghan and Trevor began dating in 2004. When he finally attained his dream of becoming a film producer, among his credits was the 2010 feature Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises.
They had a four-day destination wedding at the Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios, under lush palm trees, enjoying one event after another on white balustraded terraces overlooking the blue-green Caribbean. Guests played drinking games in their swimsuits on the beach the day before the vows. On 9/10/11, a mathematically popular day for many wedding couples, the duo said their “I do’s” during a fifteen-minute Jewish ceremony as the sun began its plunge toward the sea. Meghan wore a simple strapless white wedding gown with a beaded gold belt; and a hundred and two of their nearest and dearest waved sparklers, while sparkling waves lapped the shore.
Afterward, everyone hit the dance floor, eager to party. Meghan and Trevor even did the celebratory chair dance, where guests hoist the bride and groom on a pair of chairs and the newlyweds “dance” in the air with a handkerchief held between them. The following morning, everyone enjoyed an al fresco brunch.
Several months before her marriage, Meghan had auditioned for an hour-long “dramedy” about a high-powered New York City law firm. Originally called A Legal Mind, the pilot episode would be shot with the title Suits. Over the course of her career, Meghan had shot five pilot episodes for TV shows that had never been picked up for production by a network. But with each pilot, there was always hope that this time the show would get off the ground and become a series.
Meghan showed up for her Suits audition in true California casual: a plum-colored spaghetti-strap top, black jeans, and heels, an out
fit that any paralegal in a top-tier New York City law firm would be sent home for wearing, unless it was a summer Friday and the partners she worked for had all left for the Hamptons already.
However, she had a gut check right before her screen test. The character Meghan was reading for, Rachel Zane, is as smart, if not smarter, than the young associates at the law firm where she works. But because Rachel is a paralegal—who lacks a JD and is often looked down upon by those with law degrees—if she thinks like they do and knows what they know, then she needs to dress like a lawyer.
So Meghan dashed into the budget-priced retail chain H&M and spent thirty-five dollars on a little black dress without even trying it on. When she walked in for the audition, naturally the casting team wanted her to wear the dress on camera. Luckily, it fit.
The role of Rachel Zane had been conceived as the “Dream Girl—beautiful and confident, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law.” To Meghan’s delight and relief, the producers weren’t looking for the stereotypical Hollywood blond and blue-eyed dream girl, but simply someone who was the character of Rachel—no matter what the actress looked like.
Aaron Korsh, Suits’s creator, told Vanity Fair that the role of Rachel was a particular challenge to cast because it required a combination of “toughness and attitude while still being likable.” After Meghan’s screen test, “We all looked at each other like, Wow, this is the one! I think it’s because Meghan has the ability to be smart and sharp but without losing her sweetness.”
She booked the job, the best role she had ever been offered.
By that time, it was Meghan’s eighth year out of college, with countless rejections and near misses, the pilots that were never picked up, the onetime guest spots, the blink-and-you-miss-’em movie roles.
The day the USA Network greenlighted Suits “still remains one of the best days of [her] life.”
True success was on the horizon.
Just when she was planning her wedding.
There are several flights a day from Los Angeles to New York and vice versa—but as it turned out, Suits would not be shooting primarily in New York. Instead, Toronto, which was a more difficult “commute,” would double for the Big Apple.
But Trevor couldn’t leave his work in L.A., and Meghan couldn’t possibly turn down the role of Rachel. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Finally she was being seen and chosen for who she was and what she brought to the part: her own personality and looks, and the choices she made as a performer—not as black or white or “other.”
In an article for Elle, Meghan wrote that “Suits stole my heart. It’s the Goldilocks of my acting career—where finally I was just right.”
Perhaps it wasn’t intentional: the creators selected the actress who best fit their concept of the role. Or perhaps it was intended to start conversations about a number of subjects. Rachel Zane was representative of young women in the white-collar workforce, but viewers also see her off duty, with her family, and falling in love. Selecting Meghan for the role of the brainy, sexy paralegal impacted the way popular culture defined beauty, and brought a biracial actress into the living rooms of 1.7 million households every week. Not only was Rachel a kickass role, it was a way to affect change.
Meghan got an apartment of her own in Toronto, choosing the Annex, a student enclave, instead of a more upscale neighborhood. It was in Yorkville, a tonier area, where she took her yoga classes.
With the best of intentions, Meghan assured Trevor that they would be able to visit each other “consistently.” Unfortunately the long hours of Suits’s eight-month shooting schedule didn’t allow for quick cross-country getaways.
A five-hour flight and two full-time show business careers separating them was a challenging way to start their married life. Despite the fact that they had been together for seven years prior to their wedding, their relationship had never been tested in such a way.
Meghan’s passionate love scenes with costar Patrick J. Adams, an actor she had worked with many times before they were cast opposite each other again in Suits, wasn’t what began to unravel the marriage. When an actress looks like Meghan, she’ll be hired to kiss other actors on camera. And because it’s Hollywood, the scripts will call for her character to disrobe, whether or not it’s logical for the scene.
For Meghan and Trevor, long distance was definitely not the next best thing to being there, and instead of absence making their hearts grow fonder, they found the Toronto winters chilled them.
Attention Must Be Paid
Growing Up
The month after his father remarried, Harry started at Sandhurst. If there was one constant in his young life, it was Harry’s fascination with the military, and that dovetailed nicely with what was expected of a male royal.
But, being Harry, he was still breaking with royal tradition. For generations, Windsor men joined the Royal Navy, including his grandfather, Prince Philip, his father, and his uncle, Prince Andrew. Harry would be the first senior royal in forty-five years to enter the Army’s prestigious training facility, the Royal Military Academy.
Sandhurst was everything he wanted, but it was hardly fun. In fact, Harry said, “Nobody’s really supposed to love it; it’s Sandhurst . . . you get treated like a piece of dirt, to be honest.”
If he made it through the eighteen-hour days of the punishing forty-eight-week training course, Harry would graduate on the same celebrated quad in front of the academy’s cream-colored Georgian-style Old College as had two of the RMA’s most famous alums—Winston Churchill and King Hussein of Jordan.
Harry’s digs for the duration of his training were the same as every other cadet’s, a nine-by-ten-foot dorm room that more closely resembled a cell with the most Spartan of furnishings: a bed, a chest of drawers, a sink, a cupboard, and a desk. Harry provided his own boot polish and ironing board. Like it or not, he was expected to press his own uniform. No personal effects were permitted; any radios had to be tuned to the BBC. The men’s heads were shaved. The intention was to depersonalize the cadets and to turn them into fighting machines. For Harry, who had always wanted to blend in with the other boys, he almost got his wish. The only difference between him and the other cadets was that he received round-the-clock protection.
Sergeant Major Vince Gaunt wanted to make certain Harry had no illusions about what he was in for. “Prince Harry will call me sir. And I will call him sir. But he will be the one who means it.”
Even as he conceded that he found the training challenging, Harry had found his passion. “It’s a bit of a struggle, but I got through it,” he would later admit. But he was good at it. While Harry had struggled at Eton and was at the bottom of his class there, at Sandhurst he was at the top. “I do enjoy running down a ditch full of mud, firing bullets; it’s the way I am. I love it.”
Popular with his mates in Alamein Company (one reason was his clandestine stash of cigarettes hidden beneath his mattress), Harry was finally excelling at something for the first time in his life.
In September 2005, on his twenty-first birthday, which he celebrated by hoisting £1.20 pints with his platoon in Sandhurst’s military academy bar, Harry announced his intention to fight alongside them on the front lines. It wasn’t easy to get into Sandhurst and it wasn’t easy to stay there. He had no desire to be a toy soldier, and he reiterated his position to the media: “There’s no way I’m going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.” He took responsibility for his men as well as for his past missteps, including that decision to wear a Nazi uniform to his friend’s birthday bash. “It was a very stupid thing to do and I’ve learned my lesson.”
Harry’s twenty-first birthday marked another milestone in the life of a royal. He was made a Counsellor of State, rendering him eligible to stand in for the Queen at Privy Council meetings and to represent the monarch as her emissary at official royal events.
On April 12, 2006, wearing his ceremonial No. 1 dress—dark blue
tunic with white tabs on the collar, trousers with red stripes running the length of each pristinely pressed leg—bulked up, rosy cheeked, his red hair shorn, Harry and his fellow officer cadets passed out during the Sovereign’s Parade at Sandhurst. The Queen herself took the salute. Harry graduated from Sandhurst with the rank of second lieutenant. His guests included Charles and Camilla and his grandparents. Also there to celebrate Harry’s big day was William, who had enrolled at Sandhurst after graduating from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Now William was following in his younger brother’s footsteps for the first time, being lower on the totem pole than the cadets in the graduating class. That meant he had to salute Harry, which Harry found tremendously amusing.
Of course Second Lieutenant Wales was the only graduate to have a granny whose role it was to inspect the troops. Her troops. In her beige wool coat trimmed with fur, as she slowly walked down the row of 219 officer cadets with their raised swords, the Queen stopped in front of Harry. Were his boots polished to a high shine? Did his buttons gleam? Was every red hair in place? Harry tried to suppress a grin as his grandmother and sovereign stood before him. Both of them could not have been prouder of that moment.
Her Majesty spoke to all the troops when she declared the day a “great occasion . . . this is just the end of the beginning, and many of you will deploy on operations within months or even weeks. I wish you all every success in your chosen career, my congratulations, my prayers, and my trust go with you all.”
Chelsy Davy had flown in from South Africa to dance the night away with Harry at the graduation ball. A golden-skinned exotic among pasty Britons, she slayed in a figure-hugging backless turquoise silk evening gown.
Guests at a swanky American bar mitzvah would not have felt out of place at the way Sandhurst’s gymnasium had been decorated for the ball. Areas were divided for various events, including a casino and several dance floors. An ice sculpture was merely a delivery system for vodka shots. Strawberries and marshmallows were on display for dipping into a chocolate fountain. Champagne was in endless supply. At the stroke of midnight, everyone gathered outdoors as fireworks spelled out Congratulations in the sky.
American Princess Page 10
