Meghan: A Hollywood Princess(81)

Introduced to the forty-two-year-old Prince Rahim Aga Khan by supermodel Naomi Campbell, Kendra was whisked off her feet in a whirlwind courtship and married in the beautiful Bellrive Castle in Geneva in 2013. They have two children, and she is now known as Princess Salwa Aga Khan.

While the list of Americans marrying into foreign royal families is as varied as it is long, only one American family can claim to have two princesses among its ranks. As Americans have discovered over the last two centuries, it does help if you have deep pockets. Billionaire businessman Robert Warren Miller enjoyed watching two daughters marry into royalty: Marie-Chantal Miller wed Prince Pavlos, the Crown Prince of Greece—a country without a monarchy, it should be added—and her younger sister, furniture designer Alexandra, is married to Prince Alexander von Furstenberg. The third of the Miller sisters failed to make it a royal flush, but she did snag a member of the famous Getty family.

Finally, you can have all the money and titles in the world, but nothing can stop that moment of magic when two people connect across a crowded room—as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle discovered. They were not the first royals to experience that moment of magic. When Florida-born Kelly Jeanne Rondestvedt was in a New York restaurant with a group of girlfriends she spotted a handsome man across the room. He looked at her, they connected, and in 2009, the brilliant investment banker and the talented lawyer were married. The lawyer is one of Harry’s cousins, Prince Hubertus, heir to the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha royal house, which was, incidentally, the surname of the British royal family until 1917.

Kelly Jeanne Rondestvedt took the title Hereditary Princess Kelly of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and the couple and their three children live happily ever after in their the magical Schloss Callenburg in Coburg, Germany.

As Prince Harry might say, “the stars were aligned.”


Acknowledgments


Sometimes it helps to be in the right place at the right time. My wife, Carolyn, is from Southern California, and for some of the year I live in Pasadena, a few miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. When Meghan Markle’s engagement to Prince Harry was announced, it was remarkable how many local people had stories about the Suits actor. Pasadena was truly Meghan Markle central; Edmund Fry, owner of Rose Tree Cottage, a piece of England in the town, served her tea; her old boyfriend, now a Realtor, sold a house just across the street; parents sent their children to the schools where Meghan has either studied or performed at. Local photographers had boxes of slides with unseen shots of the royal-in-waiting. And talking about waiting: the Hippie Kitchen, where she volunteered as a teenager, was just a short drive away, as was nearby Glendale, where comedian Natasha Pearl Hansen, herself Norwegian and African American, amused audiences with a stand-up routine based around her unusual biracial upbringing.

So, starting in Pasadena, I would like to thank my friend Dr. Wendy Kohlhase for introducing me to the enthusiastic and helpful staff and administrators at Immaculate Heart High School. School president Maureen Diekmann and Callie Webb delved deep into the archives stored in the basement to discover all matters Markle, while senior teachers Christine Knudsen and Maria Pollia added their insights with regard to their former pupil. My thanks, too, to photographer John Dlugolecki for uncovering a charming series of shots of Meghan as she blossomed into a beautiful young woman.

Gigi Perreau, a Hollywood child star herself and Immaculate Heart alumni, and Emmanuel Eulalia, director of drama at St. Francis High School in La Ca?ada, described Meghan’s emerging talent. Elizabeth and Dennys McCoy spoke warmly of the young Meghan, while the thoughts of Catherine Morris, Jeff Gottrich, and the staff at the Hippie Kitchen, who work tirelessly to help those without a roof over their head, were much appreciated.

With regard to Meghan’s complicated and extensive family tree, I would like to thank genealogists Elizabeth Banas and Gary Boyd Roberts, historian Christopher Wilson, as well as Professor Carmen Harris, University of South Carolina, Upstate, who put the lives of her ancestors in context. Family members Tom Markle Junior, Roslyn Loveless, and Noel Rasmussen all helped tease out her equally complicated upbringing, while several friends, including Leslie McDaniel and others who remain anonymous, added their perspective. Tameka Jacobs and Leyla Milani talked perceptively about the girl they knew from the Deal or No Deal days, while several members of the crew of Suits, who for professional reasons did not want to be named, also pitched in.

I would also like to thank Professor Prochaska and Trevor Phillips, OBE, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, for their views on her impact on the monarchy and the country. I have discussed this issue with other former members of the royal household who have understandably asked not to be named.

My thanks too to Samantha Brett, author of Game Changers.

A huge thank-you too to my researchers, Phil Dampier in London and the indefatigable Lisa Derrick in Los Angeles. Without the consummate professionalism, too, of my editors Gretchen Young in New York and Fiona Slater in London, as well as the dedication of editorial assistant Katherine Stopa, we would never got over the finish line.

Finally, a big shout-out to all my Pasadena friends, acquaintances, and neighbors, whose thoughts, suggestions, and advice energized this whole project.

Pasadena

March 2018


About the Author


Andrew Morton is one of the world’s best-known biographers and a leading authority on modern celebrity and royalty. His sensational 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story, which was written with the intimate cooperation of the Princess of Wales and for the first time revealed her conflicted secret life, became an international bestselling phenomenon. Since then Morton has gone on to write New York Times bestsellers on Monica Lewinsky, Madonna, David and Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise, and Angelina Jolie. His most recent works include 17 Carnations, on Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor, and Wallis Simpson’s relationship with the Nazis and the big royal cover-up, and Wallis in Love, the groundbreaking biography of Wallis Simpson. The winner of numerous awards, he divides his time between London and Los Angeles.