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School. Its theatre held 250 people so the standing ovation the cast received was quite something. Meghan was exceptional in the role of the despairing mother who eventually kills herself when she realises she has committed incest with her son.

She did not have Tom in her corner – or more precisely, in the wings – which was perhaps a blessing as she was now seventeen, but she thanked him in the programme notes, alongside ‘Mommy’, Danny Boy, the ‘beautiful, amazing sweeties of St Francis’ and one boy in particular called Gabriel Stewart, known to everyone as Gabe. He and Meghan dated a few times and kept in touch for a year or two until, as he put it, ‘her life took a different direction’.

      Her school stage career was not over. The best was yet to come. She auditioned for the annual musical at the Loyola High School in downtown Los Angeles, another all-boys school with close ties to Immaculate Heart. She was cast as the devil’s sidekick Lola – Señorita Lolita Banana – in a production of Damn Yankees, a dream role for Meghan.

      The Adler and Ross musical from 1955 had practically swept the board at the Tonys, winning seven awards including one for the legendary Broadway star Gwen Verdon as Lola.

      The show, a rough reworking of the Faust legend in a baseball setting, ran for more than a thousand performances on Broadway. Gwen had the stand-out number ‘Whatever Lola Wants’, which she reprised in the Hollywood version of the film. She was a tough act for anyone to follow.

      Meghan didn’t disappoint. Though experienced in school drama, it was still a big step to parading around the stage in a sequinned leotard, suggestively purring the lyric ‘I always get what I aim for’. She was still at high school, so it wasn’t exactly Pussycat Dolls but, as the idiom goes, Meghan brought the house down.

      Gigi Perreau was in the audience, sitting beside Tom Markle. She was impressed, ‘I was so thrilled to see her because it seemed like everything she had worked for. It was very exciting, I must say.’

      Meghan was now in her final year, twelfth grade, at Immaculate Heart. She had her first taste of modelling on a catwalk at the annual mothers and daughters fashion show in March 1999. Meghan showed off her legs in a short skirt and some very high heels that would become something of a trademark in her acting career.

As Gigi observed, ‘She was a cute little kid in eighth grade and then by the time she was Lola she was absolutely gorgeous.’ Understandably, she attracted a degree of envy from the other girls. Gigi noticed it, ‘There were some girls who were very jealous of her. It happens in a high school situation.’

      That situation might have been even worse if Meghan had been crowned Prom Queen at Immaculate Heart in April 1999. She had to settle for being one of a very glamorous prom court, alongside friends including Niki Priddy and Susan Ardakani escorting the Queen, Camille Townsend. The event, called that year Midnight Masquerade, was held at the swish InterContinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

      Her date this time around was a handsome young student at Loyola called Giancarlo Boccato. They looked like a Hollywood couple and dazzled on the dance floor. The pictures of the night showed just how much the camera loved Meghan. It always had. The hundreds of shots that her dad took of her growing up revealed that she lit up any photo and one’s eye was always drawn to her in a group picture.

      The Immaculate Heart photographer John Dlugolecki wasn’t at all surprised, therefore, when Meghan turned up at his studio in Burbank for her official school senior portrait meaning business. Most of the girls would just have the required white cap and gown shot and then disappear, not Meghan. She drove out in her mum’s station wagon with the personalised number plate ‘MEGNMEE’ with a bag of clothes on the front seat.

Normally it would be just ten or fifteen minutes and a goodbye, but John allocated her an hour. She brought a black v-neck sweater and wanted to pose for an atmospheric shot against a black background. It was her first proper professional session. John was delighted to have a subject keen on trying something different. He decided to use rim lighting to highlight the edges around her hair.

      While she posed, they chatted about her plans after leaving high school. John was an alumnus of Notre Dame, the prestigious university in Indiana. Meghan wanted to broaden her horizons away from Los Angeles and told him she was keen to go to college in the Midwest, so he encouraged her to try for his alma mater, although it had no special connection with Immaculate Heart.

      Meghan had talked many times with John’s wife, Vicki Conrad, who usually accompanied him as co-photographer on important school nights to share the load. Meghan had one big concern that played on her mind: ‘What can you do with a degree in theatre?’

      Vicki was herself a theatre major, so was speaking with authority. She told her, ‘You can do anything you want.’ Meghan was uncertain so Vicki added, ‘You learn how to act with people. You learn teamwork; being on a budget; being on time; meeting deadlines. That’s what jobs in the world involve.’

      Vicki was an example of what she was explaining. Her ‘day job’ was as the manager of one of the largest shopping malls in southern California. She strongly encouraged Meghan to try the Chicago university Northwestern, whose drama department had a growing reputation in the late nineties. Vicki told her she would give anything to go to Northwestern right now.

      Meghan still wasn’t sure. She won a place at Notre Dame, even earning a small scholarship. But in the end she chose Northwestern, which had been her preferred choice throughout her teens. Unexpectedly, her intention was to major in English and concentrate on developing her own writing skills. She was an avid reader and had been totally absorbed studying some of the great writers at school – it was one of the reasons why she had auditioned for Oedipus Rex.

She studied classic English literature including Shakespeare and the Brontë sisters, as well as some of the greats of twentieth-century American literature, such as Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Salinger. For the present at least, drama was on the back burner. She did not want to become that cliché – the Los Angeles teenager who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star. Her earlier intention to tread a path to Broadway also seemed a distant dream.

      She still had one pleasant task to undertake before closing the chapter on her school days – graduation at the Hollywood Bowl. Immaculate Heart was one of only two schools in the Los Angeles area allowed to hold their big day at the iconic venue that normally played host to some of the biggest stars in music. The only time the school’s graduation was ‘bumped’ in recent years was when they had to change their date because it clashed with a Paul Simon concert – although, inevitably, in 2020 it was cancelled owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

      Traditionally, the girls wore white satin dresses that were rather plain and unflattering, so they would all frantically try to customise them into something a little more Givenchy. They stood in line, each carrying a bouquet of red roses, to have their name called to enthusiastic applause. Meghan collected many awards that afternoon in June 1999, testimony to Maria Pollia’s opinion that she was one of the top five students she had ever taught. They included one for drama, a service award for mentoring younger students, the Bank of America Fine Arts award, the Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles achievement and perhaps, most interestingly, she was commended in the National Achievement Scholarship Programme for outstanding black students – a recognition of her identity at last.

After the ceremonial duties were concluded, she joined the others to sing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and ‘I Will Remember You’, the timeless and poignant break-up song by Sarah McLachlan. It was a day never to forget.

      Meghan’s graduation photograph hangs with all the others in one of the main corridors at Immaculate Heart. To accompany it, she chose an empowering quote usually attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, ‘Women are like teabags; they don’t realize how strong they are until they’re in hot water.’

      Meghan intended to earn some money in the summer break before travelling to Northwestern, at least to make sure she had the right wardrobe – not just for looking good but also keeping warm during the bitterly cold Chicago winters. She sent off the best headshot from her session with John Dlugolecki to various casting agents in the

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