Meghan Markle’s first ever uncredited acting role was in the American sitcom Married with Children.
Before Prince Harry’s wife rose to worldwide fame thanks to her marriage to King Charles’s second son, she was an actor on the cable show Suits.
But that was not her first role, in fact, she enjoyed a number of minor roles in TV shows and movies, as well as her famous role as a ‘suitcase model’ on the game show Deal or No Deal.
As the now Duchess of Sussex was growing up, her now-estranged father Thomas Markle was working on the iconic 1980s sitcom Married With Children, starring actor Ed O’Neill.
During a 2019 interview with Ellen Degeneres, on her eponymous chat show, Ed spoke about the Markles’ connection to the show.
Meghan Markle (seen in the background) in her first role in the American sitcom Married with Children. Her father Thomas Markle was the lighting director and then the show’s director of photography
He told Ellen, “She (Meghan) grew up on the set of Married With Children, by the way. Did you know? Her father was a cameraman.’
Meghan made her acting debut in an uncredited role in the season 9 episode titled The Undergraduate. It aired in 1995, and she played a student.
In the episode, Kelly (Christina Applegate) got a secret admirer who just wanted to take her to his Junior High School prom. Meanwhile, Bud (David Faustino) sneaks in as a DJ to play slow songs to avenge his firing.
Even though Markle was out of credit in a single episode and mostly in the background, as Ed O’Neill pointed out, she spent a significant amount of time on set thanks to her father’s role in the production.
Thomas Markle had a long relationship with the production. He worked on Married With Children for 10 of the popular show’s 11 seasons.
First he worked as a lighting director for the first season, then he rose to director of photography from the second to the 10th season.
Of Meghan’s presence on set, Ed O’Neil told Ellen, “She always came on set in a little Catholic school uniform. She was just nine.’
Meghan herself spoke of the experience of “growing up on the set of Married With Children” during a February 2018 interview with Esquire magazine.
Meghan (pictured at the Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey in 2020 with Prince Harry) was familiar with spending time on sets thanks to her lighting director father
‘My father was lighting director and director of photography for Married With Children. He only retired last year,” she said.
“For ten years I was on the set of Married With Children every day after school, which is a very funny and perverted place for a little girl in a Catholic school uniform to grow up,” she added.
“My dad used to say, ‘Meg, why don’t you go help with the craft room over there? This is just a little off for your 11-year-old eyes,'” the former actress added.
She added in the interview that she obviously wasn’t allowed to watch the show at home, but “I was able to watch the credits so I could kiss the screen when I saw my dad’s name come by.”
She also talked about the women who were guest stars on the show, which she got to see every day.
“You have to remember that there were guest stars like Tia Carrere and Traci Lords and Nikki Cox. Those were the kind of women who came in every day.
“Imagine me with my curly hair, a gap between my teeth and my little school uniform wearing Keds, looking up from ‘Hello’ to these very provocative women. It was a big change from Immaculate Heart Catholic School,” she said.
Since marrying Prince Harry, Meghan Markle has given up acting (photo LR: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the Women of Vision Awards in New York in May)
Tom Bower, who wrote Meghan Markle’s biography Revenge, said in his book that going to the ABC Studios in Los Angeles to watch her father work on the show was a Friday treat for her as a child.
In the book he wrote: ‘Introduced to the world of television stars, she loved the glamour. Most importantly, she loved the camera. By posing for the lens for fun, she became a different person.
“Aware of the glistening glass’s focus on herself, like many young girls in Tinseltown, she dreamed of her future as a Hollywood star.”
However, she would later criticize the show, during a 2016 interview with the show Toronto star.
She said, “I saw how the women were objectified, and I knew I didn’t want to be looked at like that.”