Markle follows Grace Kelly in abandoning acting
LOS ANGELES: Meghan Markle says acting will take a back seat when she marries Prince Harry, following the example of screen icon Grace Kelly who abandoned Hollywood to marry into royalty.
The 36-year-old has starred in legal drama Suits since 2011, but is likely to shed many outside interests as she joins the British royal family, according to observers.
Markle confirmed in an interview with the BBC she would be giving up acting and would focus much of her attention on the causes that are important to her.
“I don’t see it as giving anything up. I see it as a change. It’s a new chapter,” she said.
Markle and Harry, 33, will wed in spring next year, 62 years after silver screen icon Kelly abandoned her glittering career to marry Monaco’s Prince Rainier III.
Hollywood branding expert Jeetendr Sehdev pointed out however that Markle is not in the same league as the Oscar-winning star.
“Americans who have heard of Meghan will remember her as a TV actor rather than an celebrity or a Hollywood star,” Sehdev said.
He added that Britain’s first mixed-race royal could nevertheless inspire the British TV industry to create more leading roles for actors of colour.
“Meghan Markle is the face of the modern princess and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t keep working in TV after her marriage. The palace will likely have a say in any of her future career choices and roles.”
But royal writer Catriona Harve-Jenner said in a commentary for British lifestyle magazine Cosmopolitan that Markle had made the right decision in shedding her acting ambitions.
“Being a senior member of the royal family is a full-time job, and it requires those who do it to patron charities, represent the UK on an international scale and generally maintain the traditions of the royal family,” said Harve-Jenner.
“How would she balance all that with a full-time acting role on Suits?”
Markle will be the first American welcomed into the royals since Wallis Simpson – famously also a divorcee – but will probably not, in fact, be a princess.
What is far more likely, say experts, is that the couple become a duke and duchess, like William and Kate.
Sarika Bose, a lecturer in Victorian literature at the University of British Columbia and a royal expert, said times had changed since Kelly was forced to choose between career and family life.
But she added that having a working actress in the fold may yet be a modernising reform too far for the British throne.
“Although British society and the monarchy have changed greatly over the last few decades, there are still possible assumptions people might impose on Ms Markle which are conflated with her acting roles, her life as a celebrity and her public role as a member of the royal family,” said Bose.