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Drew Barrymore
Drew Blythe Barrymore is an American actress, author, director, model and producer. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American stage
and film actors, and the granddaughter of John Barrymore. She made her breakout role as a child actress in Steven Spielberg's film E.T.
the Extra-Terrestrial. Following a highly publicized, turbulent childhood marked by drug and alcohol abuse with two stints in rehab,
she released her autobiography, Little Girl Lost. Barrymore appeared in a string of successful films, including Poison Ivy, Scream,
and Ever After. She is also known for co-starring with Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates and Blended. In 1995, she
and Nancy Juvonen formed a joint production company, Flower Films, and it went on to produce several films in which Barrymore also starred,
such as Never Been Kissed, Charlie's Angels, Donnie Darko and her directorial debut Whip It! and Fever Pitch.
Barrymore won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award for her performance in Grey Gardens.
She currently stars in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet.
Ancestry
 [^]  Barrymore was born in Culver City, California, to actor John Barrymore and aspiring actress Jaid.
Jaid was born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany, to Hungarian World War II refugees. Barrymore is one of four children
with a half-brother, John, who is also an actor. Her parents divorced in 1984, when she was nine years old.
She was born into the Barrymore acting dynasty: All of her paternal great-grandparents – Maurice and Georgie Drew Barrymore, Maurice,
and Mae Costello – as well as 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 was a great-grandniece of Broadway idol John Drew, Jr. and silent film actor, writer and director Sidney Drew.
Her 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 director Steven Spielberg. Her first name,
"Drew", was the maiden name of her paternal great-grandmother, Georgie Drew, and her middle name, "Blythe,"
was the original surname of the dynasty founded by her great-grandfather, Maurice. Barrymore recounted in her 1989 autobiography, Little Girl Lost,
early memories of her abusive father, who left the family when Barrymore was six months old.
They never had anything resembling a significant relationship and seldom spoke to each other.
Childhood
Barrymore grew up on Poinsetta Place in West Hollywood until the age of 7, when she moved to Sherman Oaks. She moved back to West Hollywood,
upon becoming emancipated at 14. Barrymore 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 already a regular
at the racy Studio 54 as a young girl, smoking cigarettes at the age of nine, drinking alcohol at age eleven, smoking marijuana at age twelve
and snorting cocaine at age thirteen. Her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was in rehab
at the age of fourteen, and spent eighteen months in an institution for the mentally ill. A suicide attempt, also 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 later described this period of her life in her autobiography,
Little Girl Lost. After a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment at the age of fifteen.
1980s
 [^]  Barrymore's professional career began at eleven months, when she auditioned for a dog food commercial. She was nipped by her canine costar,
to which she merely laughed and was hired for the job. After her film debut with a small role in Altered States, she played Gertie in E.T.
the Extra-Terrestrial, directed by Steven Spielberg. He felt that she had the right imagination for her role after she impressed him
with a story that she led a punk rock band. E.T. is the highest-grossing film of the 1980s
and made her one of the most famous child stars of the time. For her work, she won a Young Artist Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In the 1984 science fiction horror adaptation of the 1980 eponymous Stephen King novel Firestarter, Barrymore played a girl
with pyrokinesis who becomes the target of a secret government agency known as The Shop. The same year,
she played a young girl divorcing her famous parents in Irreconcilable Differences, for which she was nominated for her first Golden Globe Award
for Best Supporting Actress. In a review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert stated, "Barrymore is the right actress for this role precisely,
because she approaches it with such grave calm." She endured a troubled youth and continued to act intermittently during the decade.
She starred in the 1985 anthology horror film Cat's Eye, written again by Stephen King. The film received positive reviews
and Barrymore was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actress. She starred alongside Jeff Bridges
and Alice Krige in the 1989 romantic comedy See You in the Morning. Vincent Canby of The New York Times criticized "the fashionable phoniness"
of the film, but positively singled out Barrymore for her performance. After her twelve-day rehab treatment at ASAP, Barrymore starred in Far
from Home, as a teenager who gets stranded with her father in the small town in a remote part of the desert. The film went largely unnoticed
by audiences and received negative reviews from critics, who dismissed the sexual portrayal of her role.
1990s
 [^]  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 Poison Ivy, which was a box office failure, but was popular on video and cable. Her character Ivy was ranked
at on the list of the top 26 "bad girls" of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In 1992, Barrymore 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. In the crime thriller Guncrazy,
she starred as a teenager who murders her sexually abusive stepfather, after he teaches her how to use a gun. Variety remarked she
"pulls off impressively" her character, Barrymore was nominated for the Golden Globe Award. In 1993,
she took on the role of the younger sister of a murdered ballerina in No Place to Hide and starred as a writer followed
by what is apparently her evil twin in Doppelganger. Both thrillers were panned by critics and failed to find an audience.
She appeared in the western comedy 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." When she was nineteen, she posed nude for the January 1995 issue of Playboy. Steven Spielberg, who is also her godfather,
gave her a quilt for her twentieth 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 her appearance on the 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. By the mid and 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 who wants to escape from her abusive boyfriend.
The film went little seen in theaters, but was positively received by critics. In the same year,
she appeared in Joel Schumacher's film Batman Forever, as Sugar, a moll to Two-Face. In 1996, she made a brief,
but notable appearance in Wes Craven's slasher Scream. Barrymore 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, but when she was faced with unexpected commitments, she instead played the smaller role of Casey Becker.
Scream was released to critical acclaim and made an impressive US$173 million worldwide. In The Wedding Singer, Barrymore played Julia Sullivan,
the friendly waitress of Robbie Hart. Variety found the film to be a "spirited, funny and warm saga" that serves them up
"in a new way that enhances their most winning qualities". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film grossed US$123.3 million internationally.
That same year, she starred in Home Fries, and Ever After which is inspired by the fairy tale Cinderella and served as a reminder, according
to Roger Ebert, of how well Barrymore "can hold the screen and involve us in her characters".
She played the title role in the television special Olive, the Other Reindeer, for which she was nominated for an Primetime Emmy Award.
After Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen established Flower Films in 1995, she produced the company's first film, Never Been Kissed, released to critical
and commercial success.
2000s
In Charlie's Angels, Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu played the trio of investigators in Los Angeles. The film was a major box office success
and helped solidify the standing between Barrymore and the company. Barrymore starred in Riding in Cars with Boys,
as a teenage mother in a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father. When the production of Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko was threatened,
Barrymore stepped forward with financing from the company, and played the title character's English teacher. Although the film was less
than successful at the box office in the wake of 9/11, it reached cult film status after the DVD release, inspiring numerous websites devoted
to unraveling the plot twists and meanings. In 2002, Barrymore starred with Sam Rockwell
and Julia Roberts in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,
based on the autobiography of television producer Chuck Barris. In 2003, she reprised her role as Dylan Sanders in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle,
and starred with Ben Stiller in Duplex. Flower Films and Happy Madison Productions produced 50 First Dates, which Barrymore reunited
with Adam Sandler. Summing up Barrymore's appeal, Roger Ebert, in his review for the film, remarked that Barrymore displayed a "smiling,
coy sincerity," in what he described as a "ingratiating and lovable" film.
 [^]  In the American adaptation of the 1997 eponymous British remake Fever Pitch, Barrymore played Lindsey Meeks, the love interest of Ben Wrightman.
The film grossed a modest US$50 million worldwide and was favorably by reviewers who felt it "has enough charm
and on-screen chemistry between [Fallon and Barrymore] to make it a solid hit". She and Hugh Grant starred in Music and Lyrics,
which focuses on the relationship that evolves between a former pop music idol and an aspiring writer as they struggle to compose a song
for a reigning pop diva. The romantic comedy, released in February 2007, received largely positive reviews, with the Washington Post finding the two
to be "great together" in it. The film was a commercial success, grossing US$145 million globally. That same year,
Barrymore starred in Curtis Hanson's Lucky You. A lukewarm critical and commercial reception greeted the film upon its release,
with The New Yorker remarking that her role "belongs in front of a sixth-grade class, not [where the film is set]." In 2009,
Barrymore starred in the ensemble comedy He's Just Not That Into You, which garnered mixed reviews from critics,
who observed her limited time on screen, while it grossed US$178 million worldwide. She played the lead role of Edith Bouvier Beale,
the daughter of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, in the HBO film Grey Gardens, directed by Michael Sucsy
and based on the 1975 documentary of the same name. The television film was a huge success, winning five Primetime Emmy Awards
and two Golden Globe Awards. Rolling Stone writer Peter Travels found Barrymore to be a "revelation" in her role
and she won the Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for her performance.
Barrymore made her directorial debut film Whip It, in which she also starred alongside Ellen Page and Marcia Gay Harden,
and centers on an obsession with beauty pageants and the Austin Hurl Scouts roller derby team.
Critical reception towards the film was largely positive despite it not making an impression commercially. For her venture, she was nominated
for a Bronze Horse at the Stockholm Film Festival and for the EDA Female Focus Award at the 2009 Alliance of Women Film Journalists.
In Everybody's Fine, Barrymore played the daughter of Frank Goode. The drama flopped at the box office and garnered average reviews,
but Stephen Holden for The New York Times considered Barrymore "as ingenuous as ever" in what he described as a "small role".
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