Meghan: A Hollywood Princess(17)
Even though she was now “Queen Meghan,” drama director Manny Eulalia recalls that she didn’t let the adulation go to her head. She remained grounded, joking around as she accepted the congratulations of her fellow cast members. Once word got out that “Queen Meghan” was the female lead in the show, tickets sold briskly for the somber tragedy. For three nights the teenage cast played to a full house in the 250-seat theater at nearby Flintridge Preparatory School. In previous years, interest in school productions had been disappointing. Not this time. When Meghan first appeared, there was a rustle of applause despite the audience having been warned to curb their enthusiasm.
“A lot of pupils went to the show just to see Meghan,” recalls Manny with a smile. “She certainly had a fan club. Quite a few of the boys had crushes on her.” At the end of the eighty-minute production, the audience gave Meghan and rest of the cast a standing ovation.
In the program notes she wrote, “I would like to give thanks to Mommy, Daddy, Sushi, Aubergine, Danny boy, Brad, Gabe, all the beautiful, amazing, gorgeous sweeties at Immaculate Heart, the great guys at St. Francis, and the phenomenal cast and crew.”
Though she was deemed a stand out in Oedipus Rex, Meghan Markle’s high school acting career is best remembered for her performance as the sexy South American vamp Lola in the 1955 musical comedy Damn Yankees. As the production was being staged by another all-boys Catholic school, this time Loyola High School in downtown Los Angeles, once again she had to compete against girls from other Catholic schools. Fresh from her triumph in Oedipus Rex, she snagged the starring role of Lola, first played by Tony award winner Gwen Verdon. The story, based on a modern retelling of the Faustian pact, involved the vampish Lola, her deal with the devil, and her attempts to seduce a baseball fan turned star player Joe Hardy, played in this production by Paul Rorie, now a family lawyer. When Meghan, dressed in long satin gloves and a sequined leotard, shimmied across the stage in the sassy burlesque number “Whatever Lola Wants,” she brought the house down.
“It was like woo!” recalls a member of the audience. “She was extraordinary. I remember sitting there thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, this is an Immaculate Heart girl.’ She was wearing the little spangly number, doing the shimmies, the whole bit. It wasn’t lewd; she was playing a character. It was sweet in a way, but it was also like wow. This was a girl with star quality.”
At another time in another country, something very similar happened when the normally demure student Kate Middleton sashayed down the catwalk in a sheer shift dress over a bikini at a college fashion show. Prince William, watching the parade from the front row, whispered to his companion, “She’s hot.” The rest is royal history. On this occasion, it was an eye opener for those teachers and classmates who were seeing a very different side to Meghan. Normally seen as fun but thoughtful, mature and controlled, Meghan’s amorous song-and-dance routine was a revelation. After the show, her theology teacher Maria Pollia and her boyfriend went backstage and presented her with a bouquet of red roses. It was a touching moment. Meghan, who had been beyond excited to win the role, burst into tears. “Oh, you didn’t have to do this,” she sobbed, suddenly overwhelmed by the moment. As Pollia recalls: “She had appeared in many productions and she was always good. This time, though, she was a star. And that night a star was born.”
An academic star, too. Her graduation ceremony in the summer of 1999, which was held at the Hollywood Bowl, was another chance to shine. She walked away with a clutch of glittering prizes that touched on her intellectual, artistic, and charitable work. She was presented with the Bank of America Fine Arts award and the Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles Achievement Award, earned a commendation in the National Achievement Scholarship program for outstanding black students, and won a service award for mentoring younger students.
The future was looking very bright. As she had predicted three years earlier, she had been accepted at Northwestern University, where she intended to study English. She was accomplished in so many fields that some expected her to eventually enter politics or the law. All felt that she would do something worthwhile with her life and at the same time give back to the community. The word classy, which she used to describe herself in her final yearbook, and her choice of a quote from former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to illustrate her senior year photograph reflected her rounded personality. It read: “Women are like teabags; they don’t realize how strong they are until they’re in hot water.”
As her drama teacher Gigi Perreau recalled: “I wasn’t sure which direction Meghan would ultimately be going in because she also had interests in humanitarian activities. She had a good heart, had absorbed the school’s philosophy that there is nothing we cannot do, and she seemed to be focused on her future.”
A couple of years after she graduated Meghan returned to her alma mater. She chatted to a few of her old teachers and caught up on the news. “Keep in touch, sweetheart,” Perreau told her as Meghan was preparing to leave. The budding actor was still struggling to get a foothold on the greasy pole that is Hollywood and was working as a hostess in a Beverly Hills hotel restaurant to pay for acting lessons. Somewhat ruefully she told her former acting mentor: “I don’t want to come back until I have really made it.”
The staff and pupils of Immaculate Heart are still waiting.
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