The youngest member of a long line of famous American actors, Drew Barrymore got her big break at the ripe old age of 6 in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, though she made her debut in the sci-fi film adaptation Altered States one year earlier. Although her innocence soon faded, Barrymore’s portrayal of a yarn-tied pigtail-wearing Gertie made moviegoers’ hearts melt.
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As Gertie, Barrymore was the adorable pain-in-the-ass 7-year-old sister of the film’s protagonist, Elliot (Henry Thomas), and the sophisticated, sage teacher of the title character in 1982’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Though Gertie’s initial interaction with E.T. elicited a scream from Barrymore that puts Macauley Culkin’s to shame, her character comes around to the alien after they bond playing dress-up and watching an episode of Sesame Street, where E.T. learns the letter "B" and Gertie’s catch phrase "Be good." With the grotesquely adorable creature by her side, Barrymore’s lovable lisping won America over.
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Life later imitated art for a 9-year-old Barrymore with 1984’s Irreconcilable Differences, in which she starred as a young girl divorcing her parents. Although the part earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress, it also opened the young actress up to a world of late-night adult antics. At 9, she began smoking cigarettes and here, at 10, at the foreign launch party for the film at New York’s Limelight Nightclub in April 1985, Barrymore talks up Moon Unit Zappa, around the time she began drinking.
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Barrymore’s late nights at Limelight became a habit—she began smoking marijuana at 12 and was snorting cocaine a year later. Today’s child stars may have nothing on Barrymore, who entered rehab at 13 and attempted suicide a year later. Afterward, she lived for three months with singer David Crosby and his wife. "She needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety," Crosby told People.
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In 1991, a 15-year-old Barrymore successfully filed a juvenile court petition for emancipation from her parents, who divorced in 1984, when Barrymore’s destructive behavior began. After the emancipation, Barrymore still spoke with her mother, Jaid, who had raised her until that point and who was an aspiring actress often accused of living vicariously through her daughter. But after moving into her own L.A. apartment, the teen star reportedly never relapsed.
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In 1995, Barrymore once again took the spotlight—not only did she form a production company, Flower Films, with business partner Nancy Juvonen, but she also starred opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Mary-Louise Parker in the critically acclaimed Boys on the Side and made cameos in blockbusters Batman Forever and Scream. In the late ’90s, she took on more romantic comedy roles and here, attended the 70th Annual Academy Awards in 1998, a year before Flower Films released its first picture, Charlie’s Angels.
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During an April 1995 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore discussed her recent striptease experience at a New York bar and coyly asked Letterman, "Do you want me to dance for you?" Without waiting for a response, the never shy actress jumped on his desk and, back turned toward the camera, flashed her breasts to the shock of the host, who was celebrating his 48th birthday. "I can’t thank you enough for that," he said, as she giggled coyly.
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MTV host Tom Green digressed from his typical bathroom humor for a cameo in Barrymore’s love child movie remake of Charlie’s Angels. Though her character Dylan leaves Chad (played by Green) in the film, the couple began dating, and she stood by him during his public battle with testicular cancer. About a year later, on July 8, 2000, while vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Green proposed to the once divorced Barrymore, providing fantastic fodder for the movie’s press. Though the two were married the following summer, they filed for divorce six months later, in December 2001, citing irreconcilable differences.
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Following her divorce from Green, Barrymore spent the majority of the early 2000s with Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. She starred in the sequel to her production company’s first film, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and continued on the romantic comedy track with Fever Pitch. Moretti stuck by Barrymore through the death in 2004 of her father, who suffered from a rare form of bone-marrow cancer, but the couple called it quits in January 2007 after five years together. Shortly thereafter, in February, Barrymore took to the red carpet solo at the Los Angeles premiere of Music and Lyrics.
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In May 2007, Barrymore graced the cover of People’s 100 Most Beautiful issue. The 32-year-old actress had just signed a deal with CoverGirl and was starring in Lucky You with Eric Bana. Here, at the movie’s the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Barrymore again attends solo—but she wouldn’t stay single for long. And while the film flopped, Barrymore was on to bigger and better pictures.
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While shooting the star-studded romantic comedy He’s Just Not That into You, Barrymore began dating co-star Justin Long, better known then as the "Mac huy" and now known as Barrymore’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. After nearly a year of dating, before the movie even premiered in Hollywood in February 2009, pictured here, the two split… temporarily. Alongside Long, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, and Scarlett Johansson, among others, Barrymore starred as Mary, an unlucky-in-love receptionist.
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Fourteen years after the infamous incident on the Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore returned to the talk show. Donning a far more difficult to lift garment, Barrymore flashed her new tongue ring at the talk show host, explaining that she’d gotten the piercing not only because she’s "a good time gal," but also for her role in Whip It! as Smashley Simpson.
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That same night, Barrymore attended the HBO Films premiere of Grey Gardens at Manhattan’s Ziegfeld Theater. The highly praised HBO remake of the 1975 documentary film of the same name starred Jessica Lange and Barrymore as Big and Little Edie Beale, relatives of Jackie O. Barrymore’s Valley Girl accent and relatively lowbrow résumé did not impress the film executives, but she was yearning for what she considered the role of a lifetime.
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Barrymore, here at the Los Angeles premiere of Grey Gardens, studied her character tirelessly to win over writer/director Michael Sucsy. Her genuine desire, combined with her agonizing over Little Edie’s accent and mannerisms, eventually impressed him, as she recounted to Elle. "I said, look"I have all of this inside of me, and I promise you that I will change," Barrymore recounted of her meeting with Sucsy. "I will shut out the world. I will not talk to my friends. I will give up my life for this, because I don’t think that you can play this character and have a social life and balance the two mentalities. I won’t act. I’ll become this person." The hard work paid off for the actress, who earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.
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Risking another challenge, Barrymore decided to make her directorial debut with Whip It!, a coming-of-age story starring Ellen Page as a pageant girl stuck in the suburbs who discovers and falls in love with the rough and tumble sport of roller derby. At the film’s Toronto International Film Festival premiere at the Ryerson Theatre on Sept. 13, Drew showed her bolder side.
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After laboring to perfect her role as Little Edie, Barrymore attended the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theatre on Sept. 20. The film became HBO’s most watched TV movie in the past five years, and though Barrymore did not take home the statuette, she smiled adoringly as she watched her co-star Jessica Lange accept the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. In her speech, Lange noted Barrymore’s "extraordinary talent, brilliance, determination, and her great, great heart, which made it all possible."
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At a Whip It! press event Sept. 28 at The Doll Factory in Los Angeles, home of the roller derby team Derby Dolls, Barrymore beamed along with the rest of her high-power female cast. After a tongue piercing, hair dying, and falling multiple times on the track during three-month roller derby camp in preparation for her role as Smashley Simpson, a hippie with anger management issues, Barrymore’s work, once again, appears to have paid off. Whip It! hits theaters nationwide Oct. 2.
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