Meghan Misunderstood. Sean Smith

such as Joni Mitchell, although she did have a soft spot for Mark McGrath, the lead singer with US rock band Sugar Ray, who she thought was ‘hot’.

      ‘1000 Oceans’ is a haunting ballad about love and loss, crying a thousand oceans to come to terms with grief. Blink and you miss Meghan. She is seen briefly at thirty-nine seconds and fifty-nine seconds, one of a crowd staring at Tori in a glass container that is reminiscent of an exhibit in a museum or a zoo. A day spent filming in a far-from-glamorous disused car park was worth it to be able to pop a couple of hundred dollars in cash in her purse at the end of it.

Another shoot, this time for a new Shakira single, promised to be even more lucrative: $600 for two days’ work. The Columbian singer was on her way to becoming one of the biggest-selling artists in the world. Meghan had to audition to be one of the crowd dancing wildly to the track, ‘Ojos Asi’.

      The day of the audition was chronicled on film by her friend Niki Priddy as the young women drove around Beverly Hills shopping for outfits in a station wagon with the number plate signature ‘Classy Girl’. As they make their way to the famous shopping street, Melrose Avenue, they point out some of the stores they wouldn’t be visiting on Rodeo Drive – Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Valentino and Tiffany.

      The girls drive down Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood and point out that it is known in this neighbourhood as Boystown because of the local homosexual community. Meghan observes, ‘We could walk around naked here and they wouldn’t care.’ Before the audition, they stop off at Meghan’s house for chocolate croissants and iced milk and to cuddle her mother’s cats, Bella and Maria.

      She had moved back in with Doria because she wasn’t getting along with her father. She had given up popping in to see him or even collecting her mail. She admitted, ‘My dad and I are not on the best of terms.’ She still had a picture of him on the fridge, though, taken during last October’s fathers and daughters picnic at Immaculate Heart, so perhaps it was a temporary falling out. The photograph was a lovely shot of Tom with his arm around his smiling daughter but, like a million and more young women, Meghan was no longer Daddy’s little girl.

      The audition, which we don’t see, went ‘pretty well’, she thought. She had to dance crazily. Afterwards, driving over to Niki’s house, she admitted that her principal worry during the audition was that she was going to fall out of her top. She didn’t get called back for filming, which was disappointing, but it was something she would get used to in the future.

The day ended with her trying on some of the outfits she had bought during the day. The film was by no means a masterpiece and Meghan could never have imagined that Niki would store it away and make it public for the whole world to watch. That would be many years later. In the immediate future, Meghan was leaving her safe and secure world in Los Angeles and setting out on the next stage of her life.