Drew Barrymore

• 1. Introduction

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  Drew Barrymore was seven years old when she hosted Saturday Night Live on the 20th of November 1982, and nobody has hosted at a younger age since. The American actress went on to build a career that ran from child stardom to her own daytime talk show. Along the way she endured a childhood that tabloids turned into a public spectacle. She also became a producer, a director, an author and a businesswoman. How did a girl from a famous acting family make a name that belonged only to her? What did early fame cost her? And why do her reinventions keep catching audiences off guard?

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• 2. The Barrymore Dynasty

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  On the 22nd of February 1975, Drew Blythe Barrymore was born in Culver City, California, an inner suburb of Los Angeles. Acting ran through both sides of her household. Her father, John Drew Barrymore, was an actor, and so was her mother, Jaid Barrymore.

  Her mother was born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany, to Hungarian refugees of the Second World War. Through her father, Drew had three older half-siblings, among them the actor John Blyth Barrymore.

  Her paternal ancestry reads like a roll call of the stage. Her great-grandparents Maurice and Georgie Drew Barrymore, and Maurice and Mae Costello, were all actors. So were her grandparents, John Barrymore and Dolores Costello. John Barrymore was arguably the most acclaimed actor of his generation.

  The family tree reaches further. Diana Barrymore was her aunt, and Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Helene Costello were her great-aunts and great-uncle. Her great-great-grandparents, the Irish-born John Drew and the English-born Louisa Lane Drew, were performers too.

  Even her names are inherited. Drew was the maiden name of her great-grandmother Georgie Drew. Blythe comes from Blyth, the birth surname of the great-grandfather who later took the stage name Maurice Barrymore.

  Her godparents moved in the same world. Sophia Loren and Anna Strasberg, widow of the acting teacher Lee Strasberg, were her godmothers. Drew said her bond with Strasberg "would become so important to me as a kid because she was so kind and nurturing." Her godfather was the filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

  Her father was not a steady presence. In her memoir Little Girl Lost, she described early memories of an abusive man who left the family when she was six months old. The two never built a significant relationship, and they seldom spoke. Her parents divorced in 1984, and by then a very public career had already begun.

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• 3. Child Star

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  At eleven months old, Barrymore appeared in a dog food commercial. Her film debut followed with a small role in Altered States. Her real arrival came when she played Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

  Spielberg cast her after she charmed him with a story. She told him she led a punk rock band, and he decided she had the imagination the part needed. E.T. became the highest-grossing film of the 1980s and made her one of the most famous child actors alive. She won a Young Artist Award for Best Young Supporting Actress and earned a Rising Star nomination from the British Academy Film Awards.

  Her stint on Saturday Night Live that season was in the eighth season of the show. She later remembered that "nobody treated me like a kid there," and said she felt no different from any other cast member.

  In 1984 she took on darker material. In Firestarter, adapted from a Stephen King novel published in 1980, she played a girl with pyrokinesis. A secret government agency known as The Shop hunted her.

  That same year she played a young girl divorcing her famous parents in Irreconcilable Differences. The role brought her first Golden Globe nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote: "Barrymore is the right actress for this role precisely because she approaches it with such grave calm."

  She returned to King's work with the anthology horror film Cat's Eye, which drew positive reviews and a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Leading Young Actress. Fame had arrived at a speed few adults could handle, and the cost was about to show.

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• 4. Rebel Years

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  Poinsettia Place in West Hollywood was where Barrymore spent her earliest years, before the family moved to Sherman Oaks when she was seven. In her 2015 memoir Wildflower, she said she spoke "like a valley girl" because of where she grew up. She attended Fountain Day School in West Hollywood and then Country School.

  Sudden stardom pulled her into adult nightlife. As a young girl she was a regular at Studio 54, and the media made her constant partying a popular story. She was placed in rehab at thirteen and spent eighteen months at Van Nuys Behavioral Health Hospital, an institution for the mentally ill.

  A suicide attempt at fourteen sent her back into treatment. She then spent three months living with the singer David Crosby and his wife. Crosby explained that she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety." Barrymore later won emancipation through a juvenile court petition and moved into her own apartment. She told this period in Little Girl Lost.

  Work came only intermittently in the late 1980s. In 1989 she starred in the romance See You in the Morning. Vincent Canby of The New York Times scorned the film's "fashionable phoniness" yet singled her out for praise.

  In Poison Ivy, released in 1992, she played a poor teenage girl. The film was a box-office bomb, but it found a following on video and cable. Entertainment Weekly ranked her character Ivy at number 6 on its list of the top 26 "bad girls" of all time.

  The Western Bad Girls arrived in 1994. Roger Ebert wrote of it: "What a good idea, to make a Western about four tough women. And what a sad movie." Her television film Guncrazy, in which she played a teenager who kills her abusive stepfather, fared better. Variety said she "pulls her character off impressively," and she earned a Golden Globe nomination.

  Her private life was just as impulsive. On the 20th of March 1994, after six weeks of dating, she married the Welsh-born bar owner Jeremy Thomas at around 5:30 in the morning. The ceremony took place in his Los Angeles bar, The Room, and a 24-hour minister performed it. She wore a white slip dress and combat boots.

  The pair separated 19 days later. She filed for divorce less than two months after that, alleging he had married her for her money and a green card. Their divorce was finalized in 1995, and she told Rolling Stone that Thomas was "the Devil."

  The January 1995 issue of Playboy carried photographs of her. Soon afterward, Spielberg gave her a quilt for her 20th birthday with a note reading, "Cover yourself up." Inside the quilt were copies of the pictures, altered by his art department so she appeared fully clothed. She later said she would not let her own child make the same choice.

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• 5. Comeback Roles

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  In Boys on the Side, released in 1995, Barrymore played a pregnant girl trying to escape an abusive boyfriend. The film succeeded at the box office and won over critics. That year she also appeared in Batman Forever, as one of two female assistants to Two-Face, played by Tommy Lee Jones.

  Wes Craven's slasher film Scream, from 1996, shows how determined she was. After reading the script, she approached the production team herself and asked for a role. The producers jumped at her interest and signed her to play the lead, Sidney Prescott.

  Commitments then shifted. Barrymore ended up in the smaller role of Casey Becker, and Neve Campbell took the lead. Scream drew critical acclaim and earned $173 million worldwide. Her performance brought a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

  The Wedding Singer, in 1998, paired her with Adam Sandler. She played a waitress in love with the title character. The film cost $18 million and grossed $123.3 million internationally. Variety called it a "spirited, funny and warm saga."

  That same year came Ever After, a historical drama inspired by Cinderella, which made $98 million. Ebert wrote that she "can hold the screen and involve us in her characters." She also starred in Home Fries.

  Adam Sandler remained a frequent co-star. In 50 First Dates, from 2004, she played an amnesiac woman opposite his marine veterinarian. The film took in US$120.9 million in North America and US$196.4 million worldwide. Ebert praised her "smiling, coy sincerity." They worked together again in Blended, released in 2014.

  In 2007 she starred opposite Hugh Grant in Music and Lyrics, about a former pop idol and an aspiring writer composing a song for a pop diva. Reviews were largely positive and it grossed US$145 million globally. Her voice work included the title role in the Christmas television film Olive, the Other Reindeer, which earned a Primetime Emmy nomination.

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• 6. Flower Films and Beyond

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  Nancy Juvonen was Barrymore's partner in Flower Films, the production company that made its first film, Never Been Kissed. Barrymore played an insecure copy editor who goes undercover as a high school student. The film earned $84.5 million.

  Charlie's Angels, released in 2000, paired her with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu as a trio of Los Angeles investigators. It was a major box office success. It also strengthened her standing as a producer within the company.

  Donnie Darko is the clearest case of her backing a risky project. When its production was threatened, she stepped forward with financing from her company and played the title character's English teacher. The film struggled at the box office in the wake of 9/11. After its DVD release it reached cult status, and numerous websites sprang up to untangle its plot twists.

  Flower Films also joined Happy Madison Productions to make 50 First Dates. In 2009 Barrymore made her directorial debut with Whip It. It follows a high-schooler, played by Elliot Page, who leaves the teen beauty pageant scene for an Austin roller derby league.

  She spent months on script revisions with the screenwriter Shauna Cross, pushing her toward a rawer, more open-ended story. Box office receipts were limited, but reviews were favorable. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes agreed it had enough charm, energy and humor to rise above its cliches.

  On the 2nd of August 2011, she directed the music video for "Our Deal" by the band Best Coast. Its cast included Chloe Grace Moretz, Miranda Cosgrove, Tyler Posey, Donald Glover, Shailene Woodley and Alia Shawkat.

  In 2013 she launched a range of cosmetics under the Flower banner. Wines, homeware and clothing followed. In fall 2017 she introduced a women's fashion line with Amazon.com called Dear Drew, with a pop-up shop in New York City that opened in November.

  Her books also found readers. She has four New York Times bestsellers, among them the photobook Find It in Everything, from 2014. She wrote the cookbook Rebel Homemaker with the chef Pilar Valdes in 2021. In June 2021 she launched Drew Magazine, a quarterly lifestyle title published by Bauer Media USA. In January 2024 she became Chief Gifting Officer for Etsy.

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• 7. Television and Controversy

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  Edith Bouvier Beale was the role that revived Barrymore's reputation as a serious actress. In HBO's Grey Gardens, based on the 1975 documentary, she played the daughter of the older Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, played by Jessica Lange. The film won five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

  Barrymore earned an Emmy nomination and won both the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award for her performance. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers called her a "revelation."

  Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet, which ran from 2017 to 2019, cast her as a real estate agent who turns into a zombie and craves human flesh. She and her co-star Timothy Olyphant were executive producers. Rolling Stone said the show circled back to the roles she played in the early 1990s, such as Guncrazy and Doppelganger.

  On the 14th of September 2020, she launched the syndicated daytime talk show The Drew Barrymore Show. In March 2021 she said she was taking an indefinite hiatus from acting.

  In September 2023, she announced the show would continue despite the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, writing, "I own this choice." The Screen Actors Guild had said that, as host, she was under no obligation to strike. Even so, the show carried on without unionized writers.

  Audience members who showed support for the writers were removed from the studio, and their guild pins were confiscated. The National Book Foundation then removed her as host of the 74th National Book Awards.

  She posted an apology video on Instagram, saying there was nothing she could say or do to make it right. After more criticism she deleted it. On the 17th she announced she would postpone the show's premiere until the strike ended, writing, "I have listened to everyone, and I am making the decision to pause the show's premiere until the strike is over." A spokesperson for CBS Media Ventures said the company supported her decision.

  In May 2024, CBS announced a revival of Hollywood Squares, with Barrymore as co-executive producer and center square and Nate Burleson as host. It premiered on the 16th of January 2025 and was renewed for a second season on the 24th of February 2025.

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• 8. Image and Honors

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  Her Time magazine listing among the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2023, capped a long run as a public figure. Before that, in 2007, CoverGirl Cosmetics made her a model and spokeswoman. The company's Esi Eggleston Bracey said she captured its iconic image with her "fresh, natural beauty and energetic yet authentic spirit."

  In February 2015 she became one of the faces of CoverGirl alongside Queen Latifah and Taylor Swift, and she helped create the ads. People ranked her number 1 on its annual 100 Most Beautiful People list in 2007.

  That same year, in May, she was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme. She later donated $1 million to the cause.

  Photography became another outlet. For a Time Out series called "They Shoot New York," she appeared on the cover holding a Pentax K1000 film camera. She had documented the most recent decade of her life with a Pentax and hoped to show her work in a gallery one day.

  The numbers behind her acting career are large. Her films have earned over US$2.3 billion worldwide. In 2006 she commanded 10 to 12 million dollars per film, tying for eighth place on The Hollywood Reporter's Star Salary Top 10 for actresses.

  On the 3rd of February 2007, she hosted Saturday Night Live for the fifth time, becoming the second woman after Candice Bergen to do so. On the 10th of October 2009, she became the first woman to host it six times.

  In 1999 the Young Artist Foundation gave her its Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame arrived in 2004, at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard.

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