FATHER'S FIRST WIFE - Roslyn Markle
Rosyln Markle is Thomas Markle's first wife and mother to Samantha Grant and Thomas Jr
Roslyn has said of her estranged daughter: 'Everything she has said about Meghan is a lie.'
The 71-year-old lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has been complimentary about Miss Markle.
'Meghan is very pretty, very nice, very polished and very classy. I never hear anything but good about her from my son Thomas (Jr),' she said.
She also has a younger son, Bobby Lucero.
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Meghan Markle is close to her 'free-spirited' mother and her 'thoughtful, inspiring' father. The actress has written lovingly of her relationship with both.
Thomas Markle is a former TV lighting director who worked on shows such as hit sitcom Married... with Children and popular US drama General Hospital.
He won two Emmys for his team's work on General Hospital and was nominated for countless others.
Miss Markle is his only child from his second marriage to Doria Ragland. He has two older children from his first marriage to Roslyn Markle.
He lives a quiet life in Mexico and filed for bankruptcy in 2016 after reports he failed to pay his debts.
Miss Markle is close to her father, who is of English and German descent, and has described him as hardworking and caring and believing in her 'grand dream' of becoming an actress.
She has paid tribute to 'the blood, sweat and tears this man (who came from so little in a small town of Pennsylvania, where Christmas stockings were filled with oranges, and dinners were potatoes and spam) invested in my future so that I could grow up to have so much'.
She added: 'It's safe to say I have always been a daddy's girl - he taught me how to fish, to appreciate Busby Berkeley films, write thank you notes, and spend my weekends in Little Tokyo eating chicken teriyaki with vegetable tempura.'
She recalled how one Christmas he created a Barbie family for her when they were only sold in sets of white dolls or black dolls
Her new collection of dolls had 'a black mom doll, a white dad doll, and a child in each color. My dad had taken the sets apart and customized my family'.
When Markle was confronted with a tick box form to fill in at school about her ethnicity and found she did not fit in to just one category, she revealed: 'My dad said words that will stay with me forever: 'Draw your own box'.'