Drew Barrymore

Drew Blythe Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, talk show host, and businesswoman. A member of the Barrymore family of actors, she has received several awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for nine Emmy Awards and a British Academy Film Award. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2023.

Barrymore achieved fame as a child actress with her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), followed by starring roles in Firestarter (1984), Poison Ivy (1992), Boys on the Side (1995), Scream (1996), Ever After (1998), Never Been Kissed (1999), Charlie's Angels (2000), and its 2003 sequel. She starred with Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer (1998), 50 First Dates (2004), and Blended (2014). She also acted in Batman Forever (1995), Donnie Darko (2001), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), Music and Lyrics (2007), He's Just Not That Into You (2009), and Going the Distance (2010). She also starred in her directorial debut film Whip It (2009).

On television, she played Edith Bouvier Beale in the HBO film Grey Gardens (2009) earning a Golden Globe Award as well as a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award. She starred in the Netflix comedy horror series Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2019) and has hosted the talk show The Drew Barrymore Show since 2020. In September 2023, she announced she would return to the show without writers during the then-ongoing WGA strike, but after backlash, reversed the decision the same month.

Barrymore is the founder of the production company Flower Films and has starred in several of its projects. She launched a range of cosmetics under the Flower banner in 2013. Her other business ventures include a range of wines, homeware and clothing. She has released four books including her memoir Little Girl Lost (1990) and her photobook Find It in Everything (2014), both of which were New York Times bestsellers.

Drew Blythe Barrymore was born on February 22, 1975, in Culver City, California, to actor John Drew Barrymore and aspiring actress Jaid Barrymore (born Ildikó Jaid Makó), who was born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany, to Hungarian World War II refugees. Through her father, Barrymore has three older half-siblings, including actor John Blyth Barrymore. Her parents divorced in 1984.

In 2023, Barrymore displayed an AncestryDNA test onscreen on her talk show, which assessed her genetic ancestry as primarily European, with 6% Northern Indian.

Barrymore was born into an acting family. All of her paternal great-grandparents, Maurice and Georgie Drew Barrymore, Maurice and Mae Costello (née Altschuk), and her paternal grandparents, John Barrymore and Dolores Costello, were actors, with John being arguably the most acclaimed actor of his generation. Barrymore is a niece of Diana Barrymore, a grandniece of Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Helene Costello, and a great-great-granddaughter of Irish-born John and English-born Louisa Lane Drew, all of whom were also actors. She is a great-grandniece of Broadway idol John Drew Jr. and silent film actor, writer and director Sidney Drew.

Barrymore's godmothers are actress Sophia Loren and Lee Strasberg's widow, Anna Strasberg; Barrymore described her relationship with the latter as one that "would become so important to me as a kid because she was so kind and nurturing." Her godfather is filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

Barrymore's first name, Drew, was the maiden name of her paternal great-grandmother Georgie Drew, and her middle name, Blythe, was derived from the birth surname (Blyth) of her great-grandfather who later took the stage name of Maurice Barrymore. In her 1991 autobiography Little Girl Lost, Barrymore recounted early memories of her abusive father, who left the family when she was six months old. She and her father never had a significant relationship and seldom spoke.

Barrymore grew up on Poinsettia Place in West Hollywood, until she moved to Sherman Oaks at the age of seven. In her 2015 memoir Wildflower, she says she spoke "like a valley girl" because she grew up in Sherman Oaks. She moved back to West Hollywood on becoming emancipated at age 14. She attended elementary school at Fountain Day School in West Hollywood and Country School. In the wake of her sudden stardom, Barrymore endured a notoriously troubled childhood. She was a regular at Studio 54 as a young girl, and her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was placed in rehab at 13, and spent eighteen months in an institution for the mentally ill. A suicide attempt at 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three-month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife. The stay was precipitated, Crosby said, because she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety." Barrymore described this period of her life for Little Girl Lost. After a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment at the age of 15.

Barrymore appeared in a dog food commercial when she was eleven months old. After her film debut with a small role in Altered States, she played Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Director Steven Spielberg felt she had the right imagination for the role after she impressed him with a story that she led a punk rock band. E.T. was the highest-grossing film of the 1980s and made Barrymore one of the most famous child actors of the time. She won the Young Artist Award for Best Young Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Rising Star Award at the British Academy Film Awards. In the eighth season of Saturday Night Live, she became the youngest person to guest-host the series at 7 years old. Barrymore said that "nobody treated me like a kid there" and she didn't feel different than any other cast member despite her age.

In the 1984 film adaptation of Stephen King's 1980 novel Firestarter, Barrymore played a girl with pyrokinesis, and the target of a secret government agency known as The Shop. That year, she also played a young girl divorcing her famous parents in Irreconcilable Differences and was nominated for her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In his review 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."

Barrymore endured a troubled youth and continued acting during the decade. She starred in the anthology horror film Cat's Eye, also written by King. It received positive reviews and Barrymore was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actress. For Dangerous Liaisons, Barrymore declined the role of Cecile, which went to Uma Thurman. Barrymore starred in the romance film See You in the Morning. Vincent Canby of The New York Times criticized the "fashionable phoniness" of the film, but positively singled out Barrymore. In Far from Home, she played a teenager who gets stranded with her father in a small, remote desert town. The film went largely unnoticed by audiences and received negative reviews from critics, who dismissed the sexual portrayal of her role.

Barrymore's rebelliousness played itself out on screen and in print. She played a poor teenage girl in Poison Ivy, which was a box-office bomb, but was popular on video and cable. Her character "Ivy" was ranked at #6 on the list of the top 26 "bad girls" of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Barrymore was 17 when she posed nude with her then-fiancé, actor Jamie Walters, for the cover of the July issue of Interview magazine; she also appeared nude in pictures inside the issue.

In Guncrazy, Barrymore played a teenager who kills her abusive stepfather. Variety remarked that she "pulls off impressively" her character, and Barrymore was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film. She played the younger sister of a murdered ballerina in No Place to Hide and a writer followed by what is apparently her evil twin in Doppelganger. Both films were panned by critics and failed to find an audience. She appeared in the western film Bad Girls, which follows four former prostitutes on the run following a justifiable homicide and prison escape. Roger Ebert, in his review for the film, wrote for Chicago Sun-Times: "What a good idea, to make a Western about four tough women. And what a sad movie."

Barrymore posed nude for the January 1995 issue of Playboy. Soon after, her godfather Steven Spielberg gave her a quilt for her 20th birthday with a note that read, "Cover yourself up." Enclosed in the quilt were copies of her Playboy pictures which had been altered by Spielberg's art department so that she appeared fully clothed. Barrymore later said that she would not let her own child make the same choice she did.

While appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore climbed onto the desk, flashed her breasts to David Letterman and gave him a kiss on the cheek as a birthday gift. She modeled in a series of Guess? jeans ads during this time. In the late 1990s, Barrymore re-established her image and continued to be a highly bankable star.

In Boys on the Side, Barrymore played a pregnant girl attempting to escape from her abusive boyfriend. It was a box office success and was positively received by critics. In the superhero film Batman Forever, she played one of the two female assistants for Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones).

Barrymore had a small role in Wes Craven's slasher film Scream (1996). She read the film's script and was interested in being involved, approaching the production team herself to request a role. The producers were quick to take advantage of her unexpected interest and signed her to play the lead role of Sidney Prescott. However, after unexpected commitments, Barrymore played Casey Becker in a minor role and Neve Campbell took the leading one. Scream was released to critical acclaim and made $173 million worldwide. She was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.