The Unmistakable

Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore

Born: February 22, 1975, Los Angeles, CA Adorable child star turned precocious blonde bombshell.

The product of an acting dynasty that runs from great-grandfather Maurice Barrymore and great-grandmother Georgiana Drew through grandfather John Barrymore and grandmother Dolores Costello through father John Barrymore, Jr. Drew Barrymore appeared in TV commercials before reaching the age of one and became a cherished Middle-American icon playing Gertie, the cute little sister in E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982).

After several more roles in inferior films, Barrymore began to attract less attention for her acting than for the increasingly sordid tabloid stories about her pre-adolescent addictions to drugs and alcohol. Many saw her as following the tragic pattern set by John and Diana Barrymore. After undergoing rehab and—another Barrymore tradition—publishing a memoir, Little Girl Lost (1989), the resilient teen made an impressive comeback in the early 1990s, riding a wave of celebrity and controversy.

Barrymore portrayed Lolita-like teens in POISON IVY (1992), GUNCRAZY (1992) and the ABC-TV movie THE AMY FISHER STORY (1993), based on the sordid case of the Long Island teenager who shot the wife of her former lover. While the TV-movie was a purely exploitative enterprise, the films were boosted by Barrymore's confident performances.

The actress has been hailed as both emblematic of her time—a teenager who endured all the worst excesses of the 80s and then parlayed her survival into a marketable persona—and an accomplished young actress poised on the brink of major achievement. BAD GIRLS (1994), a routine Western featuring four gun-toting women, did not, however, rank as an example of this.

Her next major feature, BOYS ON THE SIDE (1995), a female road movie co-starring Whoopi Goldberg and Mary-Louise Parker, cast Barrymore in what could have been a typical blonde bimbo role. She managed to eclipse typecasting by turning in a performance that had depth and an assuredness that had not previously been completely realized.

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