Drew Barrymore: A Look at Her Family’s Acting Dynasty

Drew Barrymore became a star at age 7 with the release of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and while that may seem like it was a really young age at which to be the center of such attention, keep in mind that Drew had already been working for six years.

At just 11 months old, she landed her first job in a dog food commercial. And while babies really can’t act, it could be said that the profession was her destiny, a part of her DNA as a descendant of Hollywood royalty. In fact, Drew’s lineage of entertainers dates back to the 18th century — at least 7 generations — beginning in Europe.

Both of Drew’s parents were in show business

Born to John Drew Barrymore and Ildiko Jaid Mako Barrymore, Drew’s mom was only a sometime actress, who became Drew’s manager, and used her daughter’s fame to have a whirlwind social life that included taking Drew to Studio 54 when Drew was only 9 years old, where she was introduced to smoking, drinking and drugs.

Meanwhile, dad John Drew followed in the Barrymore family business, working in film and TV, appearing on episodes of The Wild West, Rawhide and Gunsmoke, among others, and in a few unremarkable film roles. His substance abuse problems kept him from ever achieving the greatness and praise that his father — Drew’s grandfather — John Barrymore, the most acclaimed Hamlet of his generation, realized. Even so, John Drew lived to be 72, dying in 2004.

His father John didn’t live as long. He drank himself to death at age 60 in 1942. But before his career and talent suffered from his lifelong bout with the bottle, John achieved greatness both on stage and in movies such as Grand Hotel (1932), Twentieth Century (1934) and Midnight (1939).

Three generations of the Barrymore family (L-R): John Barrymore, his son, John Drew Barrymorr and Drew Barrymore

Drew developed a substance abuse problem at a very young age

With such a family history, it wasn’t surprising when, at a very young age, Drew became a party girl and also developed a substance abuse problem, because, like acting, it was also something that was in her DNA.

“I didn’t really have parents,” Drew, whose parents divorced when she was 9, told More magazine in the February 2015 issue. “…In a way, maybe that was a detriment to my youth, but it’ll be the biggest asset to my adulthood.”

John’s siblings Ethel and Lionel — Drew’s great aunt and uncle — were better examples for their young niece to follow and had longer-lasting and critically lauded careers.

Lionel won a Best Actor Oscar for A Free Soul in 1931 but is best known for playing Mr. Potter in Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. Ethel’s career encompassed the stage, both silent and sound movies, and even her own short-lived TV series, Ethel Barrymore Theater.

Her family began acting before the start of silent movies

Those are the more modern Barrymore’s, but Drew’s pedigree extends back before silent films, into the 1800s, when Drew’s great-grandfather, Maurice Barrymore, né Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blyth, was born in India to British parents. When he scandalously elected to become an actor, he changed his name to protect the family honor. To further put space between him and his family, Maurice emigrated to America, where he found work with an acting troupe.

Maurice was the first known Barrymore to become an actor, so that part of Drew’s lineage ends with him, but not so her Drew heritage, which extends back even further.

Maurice married fellow thespian Georgiana “Georgie” Drew, who came from a family of actors. Georgie’s father — Drew’s great-great-grandfather — John Drew owned the Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia, where he performed and which he managed with the help of wife Louisa. After he died, Louisa took over the running of the theater, and also served as a mentor to her grandchildren: John, Lionel, and Ethel.

The Drew line extends back even further to strolling country players in Great Britain in the 1700s, such as great-great-great-great grandfather Thomas Haycraft Lane and great-great-great-great grandmother Louisa Rouse Lane, but that is as far as recorded history takes us, so it is possible it goes back even beyond that.

Despite achieving fame at a young age, Drew has had a rough career

Despite this remarkable ancestry, Drew has had a rough go of it as an actress. Because she achieved fame at such a tender age, her stay in rehab at 12 and being institutionalized by her mother at the age of 13 were fodder for the tabloids. And even though she credits the 18 months she spent in lockdown with not only cleaning up her substance abuse issues but also with instilling her with discipline, when she got out, she was a pariah, not able to land any roles, much less decent roles for at least three years thereafter.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the idea to launch her own film company, Flower Films, which has produced Never Been Kissed, Charlie’s Angels, Donnie Darko, 50 First Dates, and How to Be Single, among others, came out of not just wanting better roles, but roles where she wasn’t the “bad girl” because that was not how she saw herself.

But even today after her many successes, Drew had problems getting quality roles like her 2009 turn as Little Edie in Grey Gardens. As a result, she has cut back on her work as an actress. More recently, she only agreed to star in Miss You Already in order to play opposite Toni Collette, who she describes as “one of the greatest actresses.”

Drew has focused on her family over her career

Rather, she has opted to focus her energies on other entities in her business empire: Flower Beauty and Flower Eyewear as they provide a more flexible schedule, allowing her to spend time with something she has long desired: her very own family.

She had two short marriages with Welsh bar owner Jeremy Thomas and comedian Tom Green, and a long-term relationship with Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. In June 2012, Drew tied the knot with art consultant Will Kopelman. The couple have two daughters — Olive, born in 2012, and Frankie, born in 2014. The couple divorced in 2016.

Drew hopes that the Barrymore acting dynasty stops with her, and she has no intentions of letting her daughters become child stars.

“I would unfortunately have to risk them hating me,” she told The Guardian. “That doesn’t mean I would ever sh*t on the profession of acting. I think it’s wonderful. I think films saved my life. I mean, I come from a family that has done acting for 400 years. But film sets are a bizarre world. For me, it was better than my circumstances. It was a savior. For my children, it will not be better than their circumstances. They are going to be so saved and so loved that they won’t need a film set to make their life better.”