Biography of Drew Barrymore

Early life
Barrymore was born in Culver City, California, the daughter of American actor John Drew Barrymore and Ildikó Jaid Barrymore (née Makó), an aspiring actress born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany to Hungarian World War II refugees. She is of Irish descent on her father's side through an ancestor, actor Maurice Costello. Her parents divorced after she was born. She has a half-brother John Blyth Barrymore, also an actor, and two half-sisters, Blyth Dolores Barrymore and Brahma (Jessica) Blyth Barrymore.

Barrymore was born into the acting profession, her great-grandparents Maurice Barrymore and Georgie Drew Barrymore, Maurice Costello and Mae Costello (née Altschuk) and her grandparents John Barrymore and Dolores Costello were all actors; John Barrymore was arguably the most acclaimed actor of his generation. She is the grand-niece of Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Helene Costello and the great grandniece of John Drew, Jr., actress Louisa Drew, and silent film actor/writer/director Sidney Drew. She is also the god-daughter of director Steven Spielberg.

Her first name, Drew, was the maiden name of her paternal great-grandmother, Georgie Drew Barrymore; her middle name, Blyth, was the original surname of the dynasty founded by her great-grandfather, Maurice Barrymore.

Rise to fame
Drew Barrymore's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Barrymore's career began when she auditioned for a dog food commercial at eleven months old. When she was bitten by her canine co-star, the producers were afraid she would cry, but she merely laughed, and was hired for the job. She made her film debut in Altered States (1980), in which she got a small part. A year later, she landed the role of Gertie, the younger sister of Elliott, in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which made her famous. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1984 for her role in Irreconcilable Differences, in which she starred as a young girl divorcing her parents. In a review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert states: "Barrymore is the right actress for this role precisely because she approaches it with such grave calm." He concludes with saying that "The Drew Barrymore character sees right through all of this. She doesn't care about careers, she wants to be given a happy home and her minimum daily requirement of love, and, in a way, the movie is about how Hollywood (and American success in general) tends to cut adults off from the natural functions of parents."

Rebellious era
In the wake of this sudden stardom, Barrymore endured a notoriously troubled childhood. She was already a regular at the famed Studio 54 when she was a little girl, smoking cigarettes at age nine, drinking alcohol by the time she was 11, smoking marijuana at 12, and snorting cocaine at 13. Her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was in rehab at age 13. A suicide attempt at age 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife. The stay was precipated, Crosby said, because she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety. "Barrymore later described this period of her life in her 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. The next year, following a successful to juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment and has never relapsed.

New image
In her late teens, Barrymore forged a new image as she played a manipulative teenage seductress in Poison Ivy (1992), which was a box office failure, but was popular on video and cable. That same year, at the age of 17, she posed nude for the cover of the July issue of Interview magazine with her then-fiance, actor Jamie Walters, as well as appearing nude in pictures inside the issue. In 1993, Barrymore earned a second Golden Globe nomination for the film Guncrazy. Barrymore would go on to pose nude for the January 1995 issue of Playboy. Steven Spielberg, who directed her in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial when she was a child, gave her a quilt for her twentieth birthday with a note that read, "Cover yourself up". Enclosed were copies of her Playboy pictures, with the pictures altered by his art department so that she appeared fully clothed. She would appear nude in five of her films during this period. On 1995 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore climbed onto Dave Letterman's desk and bared her breasts to him, her back to the camera, in celebration of his birthday. She modeled in a series of Guess? jeans ads during this time. She underwent breast reduction surgery in 1992, and has said on the subject:

I really love my body and the way it is right now. There's something very awkward about women and their breasts because men look at them so much. When they're huge, you become very self-conscious. Your back hurts. You find that whatever you wear, you look heavy in. It's uncomfortable. I've learned something, though, about breasts through my years of pondering and pontificating, and that is: Men love them, and I love that.

Return to prominence
In 1995, Barrymore starred in Boys on the Side opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Mary-Louise Parker, and had a cameo role in Joel Schumacher's film Batman Forever, in which she portrayed a glitzy Marilyn Monroe character. The following year, she made a cameo in the successful horror film Scream. Barrymore has continued to be highly bankable, and a top box office draw. She became especially adept in romantic comedies, such as Wishful Thinking (1996), The Wedding Singer (1998), Home Fries (1998).

Besides a number of appearances in films produced by her company, Flower Films, including Charlie's Angels, Barrymore had a dramatic role in the comedy/drama Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), playing a teenage mother in a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father (based on the real-life story of Beverly D'Onofrio). In 2002, Barrymore appeared in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, alongside Julia Roberts.