From a topless Texan bar to a rock 'n' roll suicide...the wild secret life of Hollywood's new Bridget Jones star; JIM CARREY'S GIRLFRIEND BEAT ALL THE BRITS TO LAND HER COVETED FILM ROLE - AND HER OWN LOVE LIFE IS EVEN MORE TORTURED THAN THE ALL-ENGLISH HEROINE'S.

SHE is the all-American girl chosen to play the very British Bridget Jones, the neurotic thirty-something determined to find a man.

Critics were quick to question why Texan Renee Zellweger had been chosen over English actresses Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham-Carter.

Was she really the right girl to play a woman with a tortured love life and a craving for Chardonnay?

The truth is that the 31-year-old girlfriend of millionaire comedian Jim Carrey knows plenty about tangled relationships.

Renee's long-time love, heavy metal star Sims Ellison, committed suicide as he battled depression and jealousy shortly after they split up. He shot himself in his apartment five years ago as his music career hit the skids and Renee began dating a handsome movie co-star.

His suicide has had a lasting effect on Renee, who made a moving speech at his funeral and who is still close to his mother, Bonnie Ellison.

Says Bonnie: "As far as Sims was concerned, Renee was the love of his life. She was his one and only. Even though they did not marry, they were together for five years and I considered her to be my daughter-in-law. Now she is his widow.

"Renee was great for my son - they were both very hard working and focused. I am so glad she is now a major player in Hollywood, she deserves it. I embraced her as one of the family, we became very close and Sims loved her to pieces. She spoke at his funeral - it must have been so hard for her - and acknowledged that he was her big love.

"Of course, I don't know what went wrong between them towards the end or why they split up. But I do know there was a lot of love between them."

Sims had grown more and more depressed and insecure after Renee - who starred with Tom Cruise in hit film Jerry Maguire - moved to California to further her career.

They remained a couple, but he watched her rise to fame as his own prospects faded.

"Gradually her phone calls became fewer and fewer and her visits back home to Texas dried up. It became obvious to Sims that their relationship was over," recalls a friend of the couple.

"He struggled through Christmas, which was a really hard time for him alone, and then TV adverts started appearing promoting the film Love And A .45 with Renee and her co-star Rory Cochrane. Coupled with his band losing their record contract, it all became too much for him. "

By the end of 1994, Renee had told Sims their relationship was over and started dated Cochrane.

Sims reached breaking point when his band Pariah - once hailed as the new Guns 'n' Roses - were dumped by their record label.

After losing Renee too he felt he had nothing left to live for when he shot himself in his apartment at 3am on June 6, 1995.

Former band member Jared Tuten says: "I suppose it would be easy to blame Renee for what happened to Sims. But, like all of his friends, she could not have known what was going on his head.

"Sims had been battling depression for some time, he had a lot of emotional problems yet he hid them well. Looking back there were a few tell-tale signs. He talked about being down a bit, but no one had any idea how upset he was.

"We'd been signed up by the Geffen label for five years and apart from one album To Mock a Killing Bird we'd done nothing. Heavy metal had gone out of fashion, we weren't getting anywhere and we all needed a break.

"But Sims was the leader of the group, the strength behind it, and coming on top of Renee's departure, it was obviously all too much for him.

"He committed suicide two weeks after Geffen dropped us."

When they first met, Sims was famous one. Renee, daughter of a Norwegian nurse and a Swiss engineer, and raised in the tiny former mill town of Katy, near Houston - was a star-struck university student.

As the bass player for Pariah, Sims could have his pick of women and when Renee wandered over to him after watching a show he played it cool.

"Of course, Renee stuck out in the crowd because she was so beautiful," says Jared. "Sims kind of nodded at her and that was it. So she turned up at our next gig and they finally got talking."

A few month later, Renee had moved in with Sims and for the next couple of years he supported her as she studied.

At 18, at the University of Texas in Austin, where she studied English, she saw her first art house film and signed up for a drama class because she needed the credit to complete her degree.

Acting appealed to her and she began performing in student plays and with local theatre groups. Always broke, she took jobs waitressing in sleazy topless bars while Sims and Pariah hit the concert circuit in Austin.

Renee, who had been a member of the drama club, a cheerleader and a rugby player at school, worked at Sugar's go-go bar for three months as a waitress serving drinks in a skimpy mini-skirt and white shirt.

"Like any other beautiful woman who's ever waitressed here, Renee was eventually asked if she wanted to dance topless -- but she declined," says Sugar's manager Howard Lenett.

"Besides, she was making pretty good money as a waitress.

"Renee could act like a blonde bimbo at the drop of a hat and turn on the charm to get big tips out of the male customers."

After she left Sugar's, she got a job at the nearby Yellow Rose where manager Don King recalls: "I put her through college, giving her jobs so she could pay her own way."

Renee, who dressed in a dickie bow, white shirt and mini-skirt, to serve up drinks, earned pounds 140 a night in tips.

"She was a very, very good waitress.

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Title Annotation:	Features
Publication:	Sunday Mirror (London, England)
Date:	Jul 2, 2000
Words:	1003
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