Meghan Markle

Her parents – former makeup artist Doria Ragland (born 1956) and Thomas Markle Sr. (born 1944), a television lighting director and director of photography – separated when she was two years old and divorced four years later.

Markle reportedly has a close relationship with her mother.

Until the age of nine, both parents contributed to raising her; then, her father was left in charge of caring for her (while her mother pursued a career) so Meghan lived with him full-time before commencing university at age eighteen.

Markle Sr. worked as a director of photography and lighting for General Hospital and Married... with Children, and Meghan occasionally visited the set of Married... with Children as a child.

In later life, she became estranged from her father and paternal half-siblings, Samantha Markle and Thomas Markle Jr.

Growing up in View Park–Windsor Hills, Los Angeles, Markle attended Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse.

At age eleven, she and her classmates wrote to Procter & Gamble to gender-neutralize a dishwashing soap commercial on national television.

She was raised as a Protestant but graduated from Immaculate Heart High School (Los Angeles), a fee-charging all-girl Catholic school.

Markle took part in plays and musicals at the school, where her father helped with lighting.

During her teenage years, she worked at a local frozen yogurt shop and later as a waitress and babysitter.

She also volunteered at a soup kitchen in Skid Row, Los Angeles.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (born Rachel Meghan Markle; August 4, 1981) is an American member of the British royal family and former actress.

She is married to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, the younger son of King Charles III.

Meghan was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.

Her acting career began at Northwestern University.

Rachel Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981, at West Park Hospital in Canoga Park, Los Angeles, California.

She identifies as mixed race; "My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I'm half black and half white."

In 1999, she was admitted to Northwestern University (NU) in Evanston, Illinois, where she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

With other members of Kappa Kappa Gamma, Markle did volunteer work with the Glass Slipper Project.

After her junior year, her uncle Michael Markle helped secure her an internship as a junior press officer at the American embassy in Buenos Aires, and considered a political career.

However, she did not score high enough in the Foreign Service Officer Test to proceed further with the US State Department and returned to NU.

She also attended a study abroad program in Madrid.

In 2003, Markle earned her bachelor's degree with a double major in theater and international studies from Northwestern's School of Communication.

According to Markle, she had some difficulty getting roles early in her career due to being "ethnically ambiguous" because "I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones."

To support herself between acting jobs, she worked as a freelance calligrapher and taught bookbinding.

Her first on-screen appearance was a small role as a nurse in an episode of the daytime soap opera General Hospital, a show for which her father served as a lighting director.

Markle had small guest roles on the television shows Century City (2004), The War at Home (2006) and CSI: NY (2006).

For her role in Century City, she told the casting directors that she was a SAG-AFTRA member when she was not, but after being cast, the employers were obliged to help her join the union according to the Taft–Hartley Act.

Markle also did several contract acting and modeling jobs.

Between 2006 and 2007, she worked as a "briefcase girl" on 34 episodes of the US version of the game show Deal or No Deal.

She played the part of Rachel Zane for seven seasons (2011–2018) in the American TV legal drama Suits.

She was married to American film producer Trevor Engelson from 2011 until their divorce in 2014.

She also developed a social media presence, which included The Tig (2014–2017), a lifestyle blog.

During The Tig period, Meghan became involved in charity work focused primarily on women's issues and social justice.

Meghan retired from acting upon her marriage to Prince Harry in 2018 and became known as the Duchess of Sussex.

Meghan and Harry have two children: Archie and Lilibet.

The couple stepped down as working royals in January 2020, moved to Meghan's native Southern California and launched Archewell Inc., a Beverly Hills-based mix of for-profit and not-for-profit (charitable) business organizations.

In March 2021, she sat for Oprah with Meghan and Harry, a much-publicized American television interview with her husband and Oprah Winfrey.

She has released The Bench (a picture book for children) and launched a podcast Archetypes.

Meghan and Harry filmed Harry & Meghan, a Netflix docuseries, which was released in December 2022.