Time and again Meghan has proved herself a team player, embracing her new family and her new country with enthusiasm. This California girl may inwardly wince at the idea of bending the knee, miss all those opportunities to take stylized selfies, and rage at the near impossibility of finding a ripe avocado or a decent hot yoga studio in central London, but she will survive and thrive. She will struggle over the pronunciation of Derby, Leicester, and Torquay, and learn that Brits prefer to sneer than do sincere and that irony is not a device to press your designer shirts. She will learn, sometimes painfully, that while we share the same mother tongue, the British and Americans are very different people.
Her presence inside the royal family is a challenge and an opportunity.
Long before Prince Harry transformed her life, Meghan had articulated what was effectively her manifesto for her future life. Following a visit to Rwanda, she wrote on The Tig: “My life shifts from refugee camps to red carpets, I choose them both because these worlds can, in fact, coexist. I’ve never wanted to be a lady who lunches—I’ve always wanted to be a woman who works. And this type of work is what feeds my soul and fuels my purpose.”
For all that, her very presence inside the royal family will make the monarchy seem more inclusive and relevant to multicultural Britain even as the nation struggles to come to terms with diversity in a post-Brexit world.
The image of the Queen and Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, an African American, standing outside St. George’s Chapel together, will be a symbolic moment, one the descendant of a slave, and the other the longest-serving monarch in British history. Meghan, who has already proved herself to be an immensely popular choice of bride, will compliment her husband and the august institution she has married into, bringing a freshness, diversity, and warmth to the chilly corridors of Buckingham Palace.
Her many fans and admirers are eager to watch the next episode of her great royal adventure.
With her smarts, sophistication, beauty, and talent, Meghan represents the American Dream of having it all, achieving her success by dint of hard work and ability. Her life intersected with Prince Harry’s at a point where he had proven himself worthy of respect, in spite of, not because of, the privileges bestowed upon him by dint of birth and heritage. While they may have come from different countries, backgrounds, and cultures, their union is undoubtedly the crowning symbolic achievement of the special relationship between a monarchy and a republic.
After graduating from Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, Doria Ragland (far right, second row) worked for her father, Alvin Ragland, at his antiques business. Later she took on a job in the makeup department at ABC Studios. It was here that she met her future husband, Thomas Markle, then lighting director for the long-running drama General Hospital. (MEGA)
Thomas Markle, pictured in this 1962 high school portrait when he was eighteen. Shortly after graduating he headed to the Poconos, where he worked in local theaters. Later he moved to Chicago to pursue his ambition of working in stage lighting. (MEGA)
On December 23, 1979, African American Democrat Doria Ragland married Pennsylvania-born Republican Thomas Markle Sr. at the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple in Hollywood. Their union came just twelve years after the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia that allowed interracial marriage throughout the United States. (Mail on Sunday / Solo Syndication)
Meghan, then a two-year-old toddler, was photographed endlessly by her doting father. But soon after this picture was taken, Doria and Thomas went their separate ways. (Mail on Sunday / Solo Syndication)
Meghan, seen here at age five, and her mother, Doria, who worked as a travel agent, would often take trips together, visiting Mexico and Jamaica. After her parents separated, Meghan lived with her mother. Later, as a freshman, she moved in with her father, as his home and studio were close to Immaculate Heart School. (Mail on Sunday / Solo Syndication)
Meghan’s grandfather Alvin Ragland, standing next to her Aunt Saundra, holds a smiling Meghan at a family gathering while her half-brother Tom Markle Jr. holds her ponytail. Seated are her mother, Doria, and grandmother Jeanette. (Mail on Sunday / Solo Syndication)
Meghan, age five, sings “The Wheels on the Bus” at her private school, the Little Red School House, in Hollywood. The budding actress appeared in numerous productions, including West Side Story and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (Splash News)
Meghan at Ninaki Priddy’s ninth birthday party in 1990. They were such good friends that both families considered them sisters. (Splash News)
Meghan, around age ten, with her Uncle Fred Markle, now presiding bishop of the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church, with her father, Tom Markle Sr., and grandmother Doris. Meghan was devoted to her grandmother and regularly visited her at her Glendale nursing home. (The Sun / News Licensing)
Tom Markle Sr. worked as the lighting director for the sitcom Married with Children. Meghan would often bring friends, seen here with series star David Faustino, to visit the set. (Splash News)
Meghan in seventh grade, 1993, at the start of her first year at Immaculate Heart, an all-girls Catholic high school in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The school was alma mater to showbiz stars Tyra Banks, Mary Tyler Moore, and Lucie Arnaz. (© John Dlugolecki / Contact Press Images)
Meghan in eighth grade, August 1994. That year she first volunteered at the Hippie Kitchen but found the experience “very scary.” She would return four years later. (© John Dlugolecki / Contact Press Images)
Meghan’s Immaculate Heart High School was just a few minutes walk from her home in Los Feliz. Here she is fooling around with her school friends. (Splash News)
Meghan poses with her date Danny Segura for the St. Francis school prom. Meghan encouraged Danny to try his hand at acting, and he starred with her in his high school’s production of Oedipus Rex. (Vicki Conrad)
Meghan and her classmate Cecilia Donnellan strike a pose at the senior year Christmas dance held in December 1998. (© John Dlugolecki / Contact Press Images)
During her time at Immaculate Heart, Meghan featured regularly in stage shows such as Annie, Steppin’ Out, and Back Country Crimes, which were directed by former Hollywood star Gigi Perreau. In her senior year she performed at Catholic boys’ schools, wowing the audience as seductress Lola in the musical Damn Yankees and taking the female lead in the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex. Note that she is wearing the distinctive art deco–style Immaculate Heart class ring. (© John Dlugolecki / Contact Press Images)
A prescient photograph of Meghan and her best friend Ninaki Priddy outside Buckingham Palace during their summer trip to Europe in 1996. Neither would ever have dreamed that Meghan would one day be welcomed through the wrought-iron gates. (Splash News)
Meghan and her lighting-director father, Tom Markle, Sr., enjoying the sunshine at a school picnic. He was devoted to his daughter, spending hours setting the stage lights for her many theater performances. A keen photographer, he took hundreds of pictures of his darling daughter. (© John Dlugolecki / Contact Press Images)
Meghan and her fellow thespians are given a standing ovation by the appreciative audience at St. Francis High School. (Courtesy of Emmanuel Eulalia)
Meghan, starring as Jocasta in the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, kisses Oedipus, played by Alejandro Santiago Fresquez, in the dramatic last act. The play, which was staged at Flintridge Prepatory School in La Cañada Flintridge, was a sellout, largely because Meghan, that year’s homecoming queen, was the star. Fresquez went on to study theater in college and now lives in New York. (Courtesy of Emmanuel Eulalia)
Meghan, as Jocasta, expresses her tearful despair when she realizes that she had committed incest with her son. She later hangs herself. (Courtesy of Emmanuel Eulalia)
The young actors take a break between rehearsals. Megan hitches a ride on the back of a grinning Danny Segura, kid brother of her boyfriend Luis, while Brent Giannotta, who played a shepherd, makes a mock attack with his staff. (Courtesy of Emmanuel Eulalia)
A delight
ful black-and-white portrait of Meghan. It is easy to see why she was voted homecoming queen. (Courtesy of Emmanuel Eulalia)
On the day of her graduation, which was held at the Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1999, Meghan collected a raft of awards for academic ability and community service. She had proven herself an outstanding student, intellectually and socially. (© John Dlugolecki / Contact Press Images)
Homecoming queen Meghan is all smiles at the St. Francis High School homecoming dance. She won the honor not only because of her beauty but also her community work and her leadership ability. Here she is clearly enjoying herself, dancing cheek to cheek with Giancarlo Boccato. (© John Dlugolecki / Contact Press Images)
Meghan customized her room on campus at Northwestern by painting the walls in vivid colors. Before she handed back the keys she had to repaint the walls standard white. She typically turned routine decoration into a party. (Splash News)
Meghan celebrated her graduation from Northwestern with Ninaki Priddy and other college friends. She graduated with degrees in theater arts and international relations. Other successful Northwestern graduates include actors Warren Beatty and David Schwimmer. (Splash News)
After Meghan graduated college, she and her friend Ninaki Priddy took a road trip back to Los Angeles, stopping off at the Hotel Bellagio in Las Vegas, the setting for her favorite film, Ocean’s Eleven. (Splash News)
Meghan backstage on Deal or No Deal in one of the show’s less revealing and more comfortable costumes. The low-heeled saddle oxfords were a definite change from the cheap high heels the briefcase girl usually wore for tapings. (© Tameka Jacobs)
Meghan and her husband film producer Trevor Engelson, seen here enjoying a break on a Greek island, worked hard and played hard. Engelson boasted that even on the plane he was working. “But I’m always having a lot more fun than most other people I know.” (Splash News)
Meghan and her husband Trevor Engelson enjoy a candlelit dinner for two during a romantic vacation on the island of Santorini in the Mediterranean. (Splash News)
In 2008, when Meghan appeared as junior FBI agent Amy Jessup in director J. J. Abrams’s sci-fi drama Fringe, she hoped that she would last the series. That she lasted only two episodes came as a disappointment, one of many she faced as an aspiring actor. (Moviestore / REX / Shutterstock)
Suits producers cast Gina Torres (left) as a founding partner of the fictional law firm; Rick Hoffman as her devious colleague, Louis Litt; Meghan Markle as the sophisticated paralegal Rachel Zane; Gabriel Macht as hot-shot lawyer Harvey Specter; and Patrick J. Adams as brilliant lawyer Mike Ross, Rachel’s love interest. (Frank Ockenfels / Dutch Oven / Kobal / REX / Shutterstock)
In 2011 Meghan got her big break in the legal drama Suits, a TV series in which the designer clothes were as important as the script. Meghan’s sleek, sophisticated look attracted a huge fan following. Her hair was so important to her character, Rachel Zane, that she was contractually obligated to wear it down on camera. (Dutch Oven / Kobal / REX / Shutterstock)
Meghan visited New Mexico with her father when her older half sister, Samantha Markle Grant, graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in criminology. During the trip she met her father’s first wife, Roslyn Loveless, and Samantha’s daughter Noel Rasmussen. Their meeting, in 2008, was one of the last times Meghan would see her half sister. (Mail on Sunday / Solo Syndication)
Meghan and her mother, Doria, in Jamaica during Meghan’s destination wedding weekend in 2011. Meghan’s love of travel began as a child when Doria, then a travel agent, took her to the Caribbean and Mexico. While Meghan’s love of travel is lifelong, her first marriage lasted only two years before she abruptly divorced her husband Trevor Engelson. (Splash News)
Meghan’s last small role before she was hired for Suits was playing an attractive FedEx delivery girl, opposite the leering comedian Jason Sudeikis, in the comedy Horrible Bosses. During filming she met her dream actor Donald Sutherland. (Alpha Press)
Meghan mans the phone at a fund-raiser for the 2013 annual Charity Day, hosted by brokers Cantor Fitzgerald and held each year to commemorate their friends and colleagues who perished in the September 11 terrorist attack. (Mike McGregor / Getty Images for Cantor Fitzgerald)
Meghan at the sprawling Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan during her 2014 goodwill tour. Meghan and her fellow performers ate and took photos with service members, passed out cupcakes, and performed onstage. From left to right: Washington Nationals pitcher Doug Fister, Meghan Markle, comedian Rob Riggle, country music performer Kelly Pickler, actor Dianna Agron, and retired Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher (far right). (DOD Photo / Alamy)
Meghan on board the USS Ross on December 6, 2014, with former Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher (left) and Washington Nationals pitcher Doug Fister as part of a USO holiday tour. Later she would post on her Instagram account: “In gratitude to our troops, and the opportunity to thank them personally for their sacrifice and service. Such an honor and feeling very, very blessed.” (DOD Photo / Alamy)
Meghan co-starred with Christopher Jacot in the 2014 Hallmark Channel movie When Sparks Fly during a break from filming Suits. She played a big-city reporter returning home to her small town, where she learns her best friend is marrying her ex-boyfriend. The feel-good movie was a departure from Meghan’s sassy role on Suits. (Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy)
At the 2014 One Young World Summit, held in Dublin, Ireland, Meghan was invited to speak on gender equality and human rights. Here she and the panel applaud a point made by a member of the audience. During the weekend, intended to encourage young leaders of tomorrow, Meghan met former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and writer Fatima Bhutto. (Clodagh Kilcoyne / Getty Images)
On March 10, 2015, Meghan delivered a highly regarded speech before the United Nations Women organization as the newly appointed UN Women Advocate for Women’s Leadership and Political Participation. Her mother, Doria, and Hillary Clinton were in the audience as Meghan recounted taking on Proctor & Gamble over a sexist advertising campaign when she was just eleven. (WENN Ltd / Alamy)
Meghan and her boyfriend celebrity chef Cory Vitiello attending a fashion event during the glitzy Miami Art Basel show, which was held in December 2014. The couple were guests of the exclusive members’ club Soho House. (Ben Rosser / BFAnyc.com / REX / Shutterstock)
Meghan with Misha Nonoo at the Twelfth Annual CDFA/Vogue Fashion Fund awards, November 2, 2015, in New York. Meghan is wearing a showstopping metallic dress from the designer’s collection. (Nicholas Hunt / Getty Images)
On their second trip to Botswana in 2017, Prince Harry and Meghan celebrated her thirty-sixth birthday when they briefly stayed at the Meno a Kwena camp before driving their hired car on an eight-hour journey to Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world. (The Sun / News Licensing)
During a visit to Wimbledon in 2016, Meghan wore an expensive black suede Ralph Lauren dress when she watched her friend Serena Williams on court. When a brief rain shower disrupted the match, fashion guru Anna Wintour, who was also in the players’ box, loaned Meghan a sweater to protect her dress. (Karwai Tang / WireImage / Getty Images)
Chic and stylish, Meghan arrives at an AOL Build forum in downtown New York to discuss her role as a paralegal in the hugely popular legal drama Suits. (Evan Agostini / Invision / AP / REX / Shutterstock)
Meghan, with Prince Harry’s mentor Mark Dyer and wife, Amanda, watch the prince play polo at the Audi Challenge on June 5, 2017. A former equerry to the Prince of Wales, Dyer arranged Harry’s gap-year trip to Lesotho and was instrumental in assisting the prince to establish Sentebale, an HIV/AIDS charity focusing on children who suffer from the deadly disease. (Photograph by Mark Stewart, Camera Press London)
Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, joined her daughter and Prince Harry at the closing of the Invictus Games in Toronto. With her arrival, it meant that the engagement announcement was only a matter of weeks away. (Karwai Tang / WireImage / Getty Images)
; When Meghan and Prince Harry officially attended the Invictus Games together on September 25, 2017, they caused a media frenzy. Photographers were instructed not to move when the couple, who walked hand in hand, arrived at the Toronto stadium. They put on quite a show, stroking each other’s arms, whispering to each other, and chatting with families of competitors. (Chris Jackson / Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation)
Meghan’s last trip for World Vision Canada was to India, in January 2017, where she promoted education for young women, stressing the importance of menstrual supplies and separate toilet facilities to encourage school attendance. She later wrote a frank essay in Time magazine about the issue. One of her stops was the Myna Mahila Foundation, a charity employing women to make sanitary supplies that are sold locally. (World Vision / Splash)
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