April 16, 2009. Copyright 2009, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Texan actress Renee Zellweger, who played British singleton Bridget Jones, turns 40
By Susan Shepherd

LONDON, April 16, Graphic News:  She graces the red carpet at film festivals and awards ceremonies around the world. Yet Renee Zellweger, now one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, won her place on the A list -- along with the hearts of millions of filmgoers -- by playing a chubby office girl, struggling with love and extra-large underwear, in a distinctly unglamorous bedsit. And she scooped her Oscar for portraying an impoverished farmhand during the American Civil War, so bedraggled she was barely recognisable in her opening scene.

From her earliest years, Renee Kathleen Zellweger was not afraid of getting her hands dirty. By all accounts she grew up a tomboy in a town called Katy, on the outskirts of Houston, kicking a football with her big brother, Andrew, and learning carpentry and car mechanics from her Swiss-born engineer father, Emil. Her Norwegian mother, Kjellfried, was a nurse. Such was Renee’s allegiance to this close-knit family that she refused several attempts by agents early in her career to change her surname, which was regarded as a less-than-easy stage name.

An interest in drama at High School developed into a life ambition when Renee reached the University of Texas, in Austin. But even after graduation, she was determined to learn her craft away from the bright lights of Los Angeles and, instead, took roles close to home, even appearing in a sequel to the cult classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A chance part in an Indie -- The Whole Wide World -- did take her to LA, where she was spotted by Cameron Crowe, looking for someone to play Tom Cruise’s love interest in Jerry Maguire (1996). Zellweger impressed the critics with her down-to-earth performance and, overnight, her career blossomed. She looked after her dying mother, played by Meryl Streep, in One True Thing (1998) and co-starred with Morgan Freeman in the quirky Nurse Betty (2000), for which she won a Golden Globe.

Zellweger was famously not novelist Helen Fielding’s first choice when it came to casting her journal-writing heroine, Bridget Jones. Would she manage the accent? Could she gain the extra kilos necessary to convince audiences she was that weight-obsessed Thirtysomething? The gamble paid off; both Bridget movies -- the 2001 original and its follow-up three years later -- were huge box office hits. In between, Zellweger achieved another coup with her stunning song-and-dance routines in Chicago (2002), before carrying off the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of farmhand Ruby in Cold Mountain (2003). Her credentials as an Englishwoman were consolidated in Miss Potter (2006) in which she played the children’s author turned Lake District farmer. Romantically linked with co-stars including Jim Carrey and George Clooney, Zellweger wed country singer Kenny Chesney in 2005, but had the marriage annulled after just four months.
/ENDS