Drew Barrymore

Actor

Drew Barrymore was seven when she snagged a role in Steven Spielberg's hit film E.T. (1982). She was already a member of the famous Barrymore acting clan; her great-uncle Lionel tormented Jimmy Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life, and her great-aunt Ethel and grandfather John Barrymore also were popular thespians earlier in the century. For Drew, early success bred excess: by age 10 she was using alcohol and marijuana, by 13 she was in rehab, and by 17 she was posing nude for Interview magazine. She described this troubled period in a 1990 memoir, Little Girl Lost. Despite her tabloid-fodder personal life, in her twenties Barrymore became a prolific and respected actress in films like Boys on the Side (1995, with Matthew McConaughey), The Wedding Singer (1998, with Adam Sandler), Never Been Kissed (1999, with Jessica Alba) and Fever Pitch (2005, based loosely on a book by Nick Hornby). She also starred with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels (2000) and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), spoofy homages to the 1970s TV series.

Extra credit: Barrymore was married briefly to barkeep Jeremy Thomas in 1994... She married comedian and MTV personality Tom Green in July 2001; Green filed for divorce in December 2001 and the marriage ended the next year.