Barrymore was born in Culver City, California, the daughter of American actor John Drew Barrymore and Jaid Barrymore an aspiring actress. Barrymore’s mother was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany to Hungarian World War II refugees. Barrymore’s father was of mainly English and Irish ancestry. Her parents divorced after she was born. She has one half-brother, John Blyth Barrymore, also an actor, and two half-sisters, Blyth Dolores Barrymore and (Brahma) Jessica Blyth Barrymore.
Barrymore was born into acting: her great-grandparents Maurice Barrymore and Georgie Drew Barrymore, Maurice Costello and Mae Costello 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 niece of Diana Barrymore and the grandniece of Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Helene Costello, the great-great-granddaughter of John Drew and actress Louisa Lane Drew, and the great grandniece of Broadway idol John Drew, Jr. and silent film actor/writer/director Sidney Drew. She is also the god-daughter of director Steven Spielberg, and Sophia Loren.
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.
Barrymore’s career began when she was auditioned for a dog food commercial at 11 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.”
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 precipitated, 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 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. The next year, following a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment.
In her late teens, her rebelliousness played itself out on screen and in print. Barrymore forged an image as a manipulative teenage seductress, beginning with the film 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-fiancé, actor Jamie Walters, as well as appearing nude in pictures inside the issue. She also underwent breast reduction surgery in 1992.
In 1993, Barrymore earned a second Golden Globe nomination, this time 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 and was her godfather, gave her a quilt for her 20th 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. During a 1995 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore climbed onto David 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.
Barrymore began a recurring character in the animated comedy Family Guy as Brian Griffin’s simple-minded girlfriend, Jillian. She has since appeared in ten episodes. She was the subject of the 2005 documentary My Date with Drew. In it, an aspiring filmmaker and a fan of Barrymore’s, uses his limited resources in an attempt to gain a date with her. On February 3, 2004, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Barrymore’s films have a worldwide box office gross that stands at over US$2.3 billion. According to The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Star Salary Top 10, she was tied for eighth place on the top ten list of actresses’ salaries, commanding 10 to 12 million dollars per movie for 2006. On February 3, 2007, Barrymore hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) for the fifth time, making her the second female host (after Candice Bergen) in the show’s history to do so. She hosted again on October 10, 2009, becoming the first female to host six times. Barrymore still holds the record as the youngest celebrity ever to host the show (1982, at age seven). In March 2012, Barrymore is set to co-host the twelfth season of The Essentials, a film showcase on Turner Classic Movies which spotlights significant classic films. She will be hosting alongside TCM regular, Robert Osborne.
Barrymore became a CoverGirl Cosmetics’ model and spokeswoman in 2007. Today, Drew Barrymore is still one of the faces for CoverGirl, alongside Queen Latifah and Taylor Swift. The company partnered up with Drew because “she emulates the iconic image of CoverGirl with her fresh, natural beauty and energetic yet authentic spirit” said Esi Eggleston Bracey, Vice President and General Manager of CoverGirl Cosmetics North America. She has brought not only her personality into this endorsement but also her creative side, as she is also a co-creator of the ads. She was No. 1 in People’s annual 100 Most Beautiful People list in 2007. Also in 2007, she was named the new face for the Gucci jewelry line. Barrymore is signed to IMG Models New York City.
In May 2007, Barrymore was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme66 and later donated $1 million to the cause. In September 2010, Barrymore was confirmed to play the role of Ganga in the Indian Bollywood film The Lifestyle – In Generation Next to be directed by Santosh Kumar Jain, to be released in 2012. Several articles and interviews reported Barrymore’s taste for photography. As a guest photographer for a magazine series called “They Shoot New York,” she appeared on the cover holding a Pentax K1000 film camera. She hopes to expose her work in a gallery one day, as she documented the last decade of her life with a Pentax camera.
