Although her career was not particularly outstanding, the Duchess of Sussex was a well-known face on cable television.
Before being the controversial Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle was just another actress; until she fell in love with Prince Harry and her entire career took on new value.
With only nine films under her belt, Markle's great professional takeoff was thanks to Suits, although that was not her television debut. Her first role dates back to 2001 when she was called for a minor role in the long-running American series General Hospital.
Set in the fictional city of Port Charles, New York, the series focuses on the lives of its inhabitants and in the city's hospital.
Premiered in 1963, General Hospital is currently the longest-running series on American television and the second in the world after the British Coronation Street, which has been broadcast for 53 years.
Back to Meghan Markle, her role on the show was that of Jill, a nurse who was quite dismissive of patients and coworkers, something that critics could relate to her bad manners when it came to treating the Palace staff.
Although the character did not last more than a few episodes, it gave the now Duchess of Sussex her first chance on television, where she later became a well-known face thanks to networks like Hallmark who hired her for her beauty rather than her talent.
"Being 'ethnically ambiguous', as I was considered in the industry, meant that I could audition for practically any role. Transforming from Latina when I wore red, to African-American when I wore mustard yellow. My closet was filled with fashionable dresses to make me look as racially diverse as a Benetton poster from the eighties," Meghan said.
"Sadly, it didn't matter: I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones, which left me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn't get a job," Markle wrote in an essay published in ELLE in 2015, in which she referred to the challenges of being a biracial actress trying to make it in Hollywood.
