Drew Barrymore

When Drew Barrymore appeared at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival to promote her new film Home Fries, she was mobbed by cheering fans. While she signed autographs and posed for photos, one of the photographers commented, "When did she get so popular?"

Things haven't always been good for the heir to the Barrymore acting dynasty, but let's start at the beginning. She was born in Los Angeles on February 22nd, 1975. At the ripe old age of 11 months she made her first TV appearance when she appeared in a dog food commercial. At the age of two she made her first TV movie, playing a boy in Suddenly, Love.

Her first feature film happened at age five when the young Barrymore apeared in Altered States. Two years later Drew landed her most famous role playing Gertie in the hugely popular E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Appearing in one of the top films of all time helps to put an actress on the map. In 1984, Drew appeared in Firestarter and earned a Golden Globe nomination for her role in Irreconcilable Differences.

That's when things started to go bad for Drew. At age 9, she was drunk at a party thrown for Rob Lowe. At age 10, she was smoking pot and by her thirteenth year she had escalated to cocaine. At an age when most teens are getting ready for high school, Drew was checking in to rehab.

She left rehab after just a couple of weeks. Her mother eventually had to use private investigators to track her down and drag her back. After a three month rehab stay, Drew tried to become the poster child for clean teens. She did an "I'm sober" interview with People and filmed an anti-drug TV movie. Drew found being on the wagon a bit bumpy. She started taking drugs again and eventually tried to commit suicide. Though she seemed to have lived a lifetime of problems, she was still only fifteen.

This trip to rehab was much more successful. Drew felt she had finally beaten her demons and that same year she also legally declared herself free of her mother's control; the two had shared a rocky relationship for years. Clean and sixteen, Drew co-authored a book, Little Girl Lost, that chronicled her life so far.

Drew now started working on getting her career back on track. In 1992, she appeared in the steamy thriller Poison Ivy. She also tried her hand at series television that year, starring in the short-lived primetime soap 2000 Malibu Road. In 1993 she played Long Island Lolita Amy Fisher in a TV movie. That same year she married actor Jeremy Thomas, but that union only lasted two months. In 1995 the 20 year old Barrymore showed the world she was no longer a teen by posing in the January Playboy. She also gave talk show host David Letterman an on air birthday present by dancing on his desk and flashing him out of camera view. She rounded out 1995 by appearing in movies like Mad Love, Batman Forever, and Boys on the Side.

In 1996 she appeared in the teen horror parody Scream and worked opposite Edward Norton in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You. She teamed up with Adam Sandler in 1998 to appear in the wildly popular hit The Wedding Singer and ended the year with a strong performance in Ever After. The now hard-working actress turned her hand to producing as well. In 1999 she produced and starred in Never Been Kissed and is currently working on Charlie's Angels: The Movie with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu.

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