box.’
The school prided itself on its diversity. Neither race nor religion was of paramount importance. Although it was founded by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1906, little more than fifty per cent of the pupils were Catholic by the time Meghan enrolled. She would have been thought of as Christian while other groups included Buddhists, Muslims and Hindi, as well as those who didn’t have a religion at all.
Even in the early days when all the teachers were nuns, the mindset was to be as welcoming as possible. The girls who did not share the Catholic faith were never told they were wrong. Despite being on one of the busiest junctions in the Los Feliz neighbourhood – Franklin and Western – the campus of Immaculate Heart was a tranquil urban oasis with plenty of space for conversation, laughter or some private moments. In the centre of the grounds was an inviting swimming pool that would have graced many of the movie-star mansions of Beverly Hills. Across the road was the building that housed the American Film Institute, just in case the pupils needed reminding that Hollywood was near.
Although the fees at the private school were expensive for those that could afford to pay the full amount, Immaculate Heart was not full of the children of millionaires; nor was it packed with celebrity offspring. Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, for instance, went to Marymount High School, another all-girl Catholic school on Sunset Boulevard; Jake Gyllenhaal and Ayda Field attended the Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City.
You can usually find at least one notable celebrity at any school in LA. Immaculate Heart was no exception. Until Meghan featured as an alumna, the best-known actress through the gates was probably the much-loved television and film star Mary Tyler Moore, who died in 2017.
Following her death, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, Gabrielle Carteris, said, ‘At a time when independence for women was not the social norm, both the fictional Mary and the real-life Mary set an example, showing that women could take control of their lives and their careers.’ It was an example that Meghan Markle would follow.
Mary Tyler Moore was a role model for the girls at Immaculate Heart, although more so probably for the mothers and grandmothers of Meghan’s generation. An alumna more relevant to Meghan was Tyra Banks, who had graduated just a couple of years earlier. Tyra had shot up by three inches when she was eleven and had to contend with negativity and name-calling from bullies who would call her ‘giraffe’ and ‘light-bulb head’, but she had the last laugh. While she was still at the school she embarked on her successful career as a supermodel.
Tyra launched her TV career in 1993, just as Meghan started at Immaculate Heart, playing Will Smith’s childhood friend Jackie Ames in seven episodes of his popular sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. She was only nineteen when she found fame. Meghan would have to wait far longer.
In some ways, Tyra has become a younger version of Oprah Winfrey, branching out into the world of broadcasting and philanthropy, and boasting a fortune estimated to be more than $90 million. As long ago as 1994, when Meghan was in eighth grade, Tyra started the Tyra Banks Scholarship so that disadvantaged African–American girls could attend Immaculate Heart. She recognised at a young age that not every girl of colour was going to become a supermodel.
In 1999, the year Meghan graduated, Tyra also founded TZONE, an annual seven-day camp designed to improve the leadership and life skills of similarly underprivileged girls in and around Los Angeles. Tyra wanted to build the self-esteem of pre-teen and teenage girls and help them to overcome gender stereotyping and body issues. The concept went nationwide in 2005 as the Tyra Banks TZONE Foundation.
For Meghan, her own confusion about her identity was not something that was going to disappear overnight. Despite the worthy philosophy of the school, she had to confront basic problems every day, including where to sit in the canteen at lunchtimes. Inevitably, there were cliques. Should she spend the hour with the black girls or the white girls, with the Filipino or Latino girls? Mostly she avoided the issue by joining every group or society going, making do with a sandwich during French club or giving her views on the next important question for the student body. It helped that she was intelligent and articulate, although there was a chance she was becoming a little earnest.
The girls at Immaculate Heart were encouraged to get involved in the community. In these early teenage years they were educated in the school’s ideology values ‘to become women of great heart and right conscience through leadership, service, and a life-long commitment to Christian values.’
In middle school, they were expected to volunteer for worthwhile projects in the Los Angeles area. Meghan, aged thirteen, chose a particularly challenging one, working at a place that was on Doria’s radar as something worth supporting.
The enterprise in the heart of downtrodden, downcast, downtown LA was run by a remarkable couple, Jeff Dietrich and Catherine Morris, a former nun, who is in her eighties now but still turning up two or three times a week to do her bit at the ‘Hippie Kitchen’, as the locals named their community kitchen back in the day.
Skid Row, fifty-four blocks of relentless misery, is not a place for a night-time stroll past the trolleys full of crumpled clothes and cardboard boxes, past the homeless men and women huddled round an oil-drum fire waiting for the sun to rise on another day; waiting for the soup kitchen on the corner of 6th Street and Gladys Avenue to open.
Jeff and Catherine met as volunteers there in 1974, four years after the kitchen opened in an old Victorian house. They were part of an organisation called the Catholic Worker movement that aims to help the most vulnerable members of society. The three hundred or so homeless people queuing for their only meal of the day were not fed religion as part of the deal.
Instead they were treated to an hour or so of respect where they could eat some freshly cooked food – vegetables, rice and beans or some salad with hunks of bread – in the tranquil, sunny courtyard dotted with palm trees and parrots, and chat about this and that and nothing in particular before stepping back into the harsh reality of their world. Perhaps best of all, it was a place of safety where they knew your name.
The kitchen was open in the mornings and the police were never too far away, patrolling the sidewalks where crack cocaine and bad alcohol were in competition to drag the Skid Row residents down even further. Meghan had been apprehensive, even fearful, of volunteering. She had seen the grim streets of Mexico and Jamaica, but here she was making a connection and becoming personally involved: ‘The first day I felt really scared. I was young and it was rough and raw down there, and though I was with a great volunteer group, I just felt overwhelmed.’
Meghan was more her confident self when she gave her first serious speech; she spoke at her middle school graduation ceremony at Immaculate Heart in June 1995. It was a masterful effort for someone not yet fourteen. Wearing the traditional white cap and gown, she showed no sign of outward nerves when she began, ‘Good evening parents, friends, faculty and fellow classmates …’
She thanked the school graciously for the previous two years, singling out the religious lessons that had helped her and others to ‘develop spirituality in our lives’ and the classes that had taught them ‘a deep compassion to those who suffer from the Aids virus’.
She concluded in a mature way: ‘We will graduate from high school in 1999 and begin college in the next century, taking many different paths. Some of us will go into politics, finance, entertainment, education and many other fields. But no matter what field we choose, we will always carry the spirit of Immaculate Heart with us. And always and forever as women of great heart, dedicate ourselves to making it a better world.’
Not for the last time in her life, a Meghan Markle speech was greeted with a rapturous round of applause. The last sentiment was one she has endeavoured to follow throughout her life and that she could have included in almost any speech she has made since.
Doria continued to nurture her daughter’s empathy by taking Meghan with her to weekend meetings of her church, the Agape (Greek for unconditional love) International Spiritual Center in Santa Monica. These were very popular across a wide spectrum of ages and ethnicity. Dismissing these gatherings as an exuberant, exclusively black gospel event is completely wrong.
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