DREW BARRYMORE (1975 - )
As inspiring figures go, Barrymore pulls double duty by proving that it's possible to be both a Barrymore and a former child star and still not go tragically off the rails, even though the attractions of the grape are not unknown to her. (Lindsay! We know you read this feature religiously! Put down that bottle and pull over to the side of the road and take some notes!) She made her film debut at five in the aptly titled Altered States; two years later, E.T. the Extra-terrestrial made her a household name and led to her becoming the youngest-ever host of Saturday Night Live, a record that I hope is still in her name: I'm too afraid to check to see who might have broken it since. After an early spell (she was barely in her teens) as a tabloid star with stints in and out of rehab, Barrymore's mature career began with her attention-getting bad girl performance in the 1992 Poison Ivy, in which she played the jailbait from hell. Her work in that film was highly creditable, but it soon became clear that she wasn't really cut out to be playing mean girls: she was just too damned lovable. Since then, she's contributed her glow to such offbeat projects as Guncrazy, Home Fries, and Donnie Darko, which was partly financed by Flower Films, the company she co-founded in 1999, and which has produced such vehicles as Never Been Kissed and the Charlie's Angels films. Her charitable endeavors extend to many of her romantic comedies: she has convincingly simulated a yearning interest in such male co-stars as Adam Sandler (twice!), Jimmy Fallon, and Tom Green. (Let's not go there.) Barrymore has the potential to be a major dramatic actress, as has been most clearly demonstrated by her remarkable turn as a girl whose life is twisted out of shape by a pregnancy born of a mercy fuck (with Steve Zahn), but in the meantime, in fluffy comedies and talk show appearances, she continues to do the great work that it sometimes seems that she, alone of all the actresses in Hollywood, is fully capable of doing: she gives cuteness a good name.
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