Drew Barrymore Popular Books

Drew Barrymore Biography & Facts

Drew Blythe Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, producer, talk show host and author. A member of the Barrymore family of actors, she has received several awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for nine Emmy Awards and a British Academy Film Award. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. She is also the Chief Gifting Officer for Etsy as of January 2024. Barrymore achieved fame as a child actress with her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Following a highly publicized childhood marked by drug and alcohol abuse, she released an autobiography Little Girl Lost, which became a New York Times bestseller. She starred in a string of successful films during the 1990s and 2000s, including Charlie's Angels, Poison Ivy, Boys on the Side, Mad Love, Batman Forever, Scream, and Ever After. Barrymore starred with Adam Sandler in the films The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates, and Blended. Her other films include Firestarter, Donnie Darko, Riding in Cars with Boys, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Fever Pitch, Music and Lyrics, Going the Distance, Big Miracle, and Miss You Already. She also starred in her directorial debut film Whip It. She won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award for her role in Grey Gardens. She starred in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet and currently hosts her syndicated talk show The Drew Barrymore Show. In September 2023, she announced she would return to the show without writers during the ongoing WGA strike, but after backlash, she reversed the decision the same month. Barrymore is the founder of the production company Flower Films. It produced several projects in which she has starred. She launched a range of cosmetics under the Flower banner in 2013, which has grown to include lines in perfume, hair products and eyewear. Her other business ventures include a range of wines, homeware and clothing. In 2014, Barrymore released the New York Times bestselling photobook Find It in Everything of photographs she had taken over the span of a decade of everyday situations in the shape of a heart, including a discarded straw wrapper, a hole in a T-shirt, and a scallion in a bowl of miso soup. E. P. Dutton published a collection of Barrymore's autobiographical essays in her New York Times bestselling book Wildflower in 2015, for which she also narrated the audiobook version. Early life Ancestry Drew Blythe Barrymore was born on February 22, 1975, in Culver City, California, to actor John Drew Barrymore and aspiring actress Jaid Barrymore (born Ildikó Jaid Makó), who was born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany, to Hungarian World War II refugees. Through her father, Barrymore has three older half-siblings, including actor John Blyth Barrymore. Her parents divorced in 1984. In 2023, Barrymore displayed an AncestryDNA test onscreen on her talk show, which showed that her genetic ancestry is primarily European, with 6% Northern Indian. Barrymore was born into an acting family. All of her paternal great-grandparents, Maurice and Georgie Drew Barrymore, Maurice and Mae Costello (née Altschuk), and 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 is a great grandniece of Broadway idol John Drew Jr. and silent film actor, writer and director Sidney Drew. Barrymore's 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 filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Barrymore's first name, Drew, was the maiden name of her paternal great-grandmother Georgie Drew, and her middle name, Blythe, was derived from the birth surname (Blyth) of her great-grandfather who later took the stage name of Maurice Barrymore. In her 1991 autobiography Little Girl Lost, Barrymore recounted early memories of her abusive father, who left the family when she was six months old. She and her father never had a significant relationship and seldom spoke. Childhood Barrymore grew up on Poinsettia Place in West Hollywood, until she moved to Sherman Oaks at the age of seven. In her 2015 memoir Wildflower, she says she spoke "like a valley girl" because she grew up in Sherman Oaks. She moved back to West Hollywood on becoming emancipated at age 14. She 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 a regular at Studio 54 as a young girl, and her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was placed in rehab at 13, and spent 18 months in an institution for the mentally ill. A suicide attempt 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 described this period of her life for Little Girl Lost. After a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment at the age of 15. Career 1970s–1980s Barrymore's career began when she was eleven months old, when she appeared in a dog food commercial. After her film debut with a small role in Altered States, she played Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Director Steven Spielberg felt she had the right imagination for the role after she impressed him with a story that she led a punk rock band. E.T. was the highest-grossing film of the 1980s, and made Barrymore one of the most famous child actors of the time. She won the Young Artist Award for Best Young Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Rising Star Award at the British Academy Film Awards. In the eighth season of Saturday Night Live, she became the youngest person to guest-host the series. In the 1984 film adaptation for Stephen King's 1980 novel Firestarter, Barrymore played a girl with pyrokinesis, and the target of a secret government agency known as The Shop. That year, she also played a young girl divorcing her famous parents in Irreconcilable Differences, and was nominated for her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote: "Barrymore is the right actress for this role precisely because she approaches it with such grave calm." Barrymore endured a troubled youth and continued acting during the decade. She starred in the anthology horror film Cat's Eye, also w.... Discover the Drew Barrymore popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Drew Barrymore books.