Drew Barrymore- Former Child Star and Current Day Popular Film Actress 1975-

I didn’t want to be considered another Hollywood tragedy. . . . If I’ve learned anything. It’s [that it is] always better to tell the truth. And by doing so, maybe it will help other kids not to end up like me.
—DREW BARRYMORE,

IN February 2001 Drew Barrymore and Tom Ircen awoke to the sound of Drew’s dog, Flossie, barking furiously. Their Beverly Hills house was in flames from an electrical malfunction. Although Barrymore and Green escaped unharmed, thanks to Flossie, Drews home was destroyed.
The actress later said she felt grateful for the experience.

“It was time to start over,” she explained. ” [I was holding on to] things that made me know I had an identity I didn’t have growing up. … 1 believe it happenfed] for spiritual reasons.”

That Barrymore saw spiritual opportunity in the disaster was a testament to her resiliency. The former child star endured a lonely youth, abusive and neglectful parents, alcoholism, drug abuse, and a suicide attempt—all before she was fifteen, and all under the constant glare of celebrity. Clearly, the fire that destroyed Drew’s home was not the first time she’d lost everything.
When Drew Blythe Barrymore was born on February 22, 1975, in Culver City, California, her parents. John Drew Barrymore Jr. and Ildyko Jaid Mako, had already separated. John had a history of alcoholism, drug abuse, and violence. One day while she was pregnant, Jaid left him. With a baby to support, she kept an intense schedule of waitressing and auditioning and relied heavily on baby-sitters.
When Drew was eleven months old, Jaid took her to an audition for a dog food commercial. Drew got tbe part after a puppy bit her—and she laughed. In 1978 she appeared in the TV movie Suddenly, Love. “Somehow, at that age, she understood what it was all about,” Jaid remembers.
Nearly always alone with strangers, Drew was lonely and sad. Her earliest memory of her father was a visit in which he was very drunk. Drew claims that her desire to act came from a hunger to feel loved: “I was the girl who didn’t think anyone loved her, which only inspired me to try to be accepted even more.” The bustle of the movie set made her feel like part of a family.
In 1981 Jaid read Drew a script about an alien who is discovered and sheltered by a boy named Elliot. That story was E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, directed by Steven Spielberg, who remembered Drew from a previous audition. Spielberg loved Drews charm and imagination, and Drew saw Spielberg as a father figure. She got the part of Gertie, Elliot’s younger sister.

£ T. was a smash hit—and it changed Drew’s life forever. “[PJcople asked for autographs. They stared. They knew my name. . . . They wanted to touch me… . [Ijt frightened me,” she remembers. Reporters surrounded her. She rode in limousines, attended photo shoots, and was interviewed constantly. She appeared on The Tonight Show and was the youngest guest-host of Saturday Night Live. She was seven years old.
Not until the E.T. publicity did Drew learn that she came from a “royal family” of actots. Her grandfather John Barrymore, his brother Lionel, and his sister Ethel had been critically acclaimed actors. All three battled alcoholism, and John had four disastrous marriages. One of John’s children was John Jr., Drew’s father. Anxious to live up to the Barrymore name, Drew felt added pressure to succeed.
After starring in the films Irreconcilable Differences and Ftrestarter (both 1984), Drew had her first taste of alcohol during a “wrap” party for Ftrestarter, Her mother took her daughter to bars that Drew was legally too young to enter. When Drew’s movies did poorly, she started getting rejected at auditions. She was too old for children’s roles and too young for teen roles. Her grades dropped; she neglected her appearance. She felt a staggering sense of rejection.
Drew’s refuge became the bars she attended with her mother. Jaid even threw her daughter a festive tenth birthday party—at a nightclub. At twelve, Drew drank regularly and smoked cigarettes and marijuana. She hung out with rebellious older kids at school and began to resent Jaid for having taken advantage of her tame. Worried about her weight, Drew wrongly believed that abusing cocaine, as her friends did, would help her stay thin. Almost instantly, she was addicted.
One night after a harrowing argument, Jaid checked Drew into a rehabilitation center for drug abusers. But she removed her twelve days later: she did not want Drew to lose her role in Far From Home. The rehab center assigned a counselor to travel with Drew on location. A consummare professional, Drew had never abused drugs while working—but now she also remained sober during time off.
Nervous and edgy after returning from a trip to New York for an audition, Drew slipped up and went on a drug binge. She stole her mother’s credit card and car, intending to run away to Hawaii. Instead, she crashed into two cars and was arrested by rehab agents.
Drew used her rehab stay to understand her behavior and regain confidence. She told her story to People magazine and appeared in an ABC Aftenchool Special about teens in recovery. But after being “clean” for six months, she slipped up again and smoked marijuana. Publicizing her drug use had made staying clean more difficult. She began using drugs regularly and felt ashamed of hiding It.
In 1989 fourteen-year-old Drew moved into her own apartment. She sank into depression and was near breakdown when her father called to ask her for money. Drew refused him, but the guilt sent her on a drug binge. Then her mother announced she was taking a trip—with Drew’s ex-boyfriend. Completely distraught, Barrymore tried to take her own life. She awoke in a hospital, where she’d been taken after her roommate found her. She entered rehab again. This time she truly wanted to get better.
Drew moved in with musician David Crosby and his wife, Jan Dance, both former addicts. “I felt she had been dealt a short deck,” said Crosby. “I didn’t want to see her go down the tubes.” Drew regained control of her life. She published an autobiography, Little Girl Lost (1990), and enthusiastically returned to acting. She costarred in the 1992 TV series 2000 Malibu Road and starred in Poison Ivy that year. She appeared in seven more films before 1994, including Guncrazy, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination.
Barrymore continued her winning streak with Boys on the Side, and Batman Forever (both 1995), and Scream and Everyone Says I Love You (both 1996). She made five films from 1997 to 1998, including The Wedding Singer and Ever After. She also launched Flower Films Production Company and produced Never Been Kissed (1999), in which she starred. Among her three 2001 films was the well-received Riding in Cars with Boys; she also costarred in and produced Charlie’s Angels (2^2).
Drew Barrymore’s personal life has been tumultuous. In December 2001 Drew’s much publicized six-month marriage to comedian Tom Green ended. But Barrymore remains determined to succeed.

“My goals are simple: to stay sober and live a good life,” she once wrote. “All I can do is the best I can.”

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