From PEOPLE Magazine
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Truth be told, Barrymore never looked—or lived—better. Two months after turning 30, the onetime little girl lost has emerged from years of personal trials and romantic missteps as a woman with a mission. She's in love—her three-year relationship with Fabrizio Moretti, 24, drummer for the rock band the Strokes ("the kindest, smartest, most talented person I have ever known") is going strong, and her career is in full bloom. After generating $516 million at the global box office with the two Charlie's Angels films, she produced and starred in last year's hit romantic comedy 50 First Dates, as well as her latest, Fever Pitch, about a businesswoman who falls for a Red Sox fanatic played by Jimmy Fallon. Her own well-being was apparent on the Pitch set from the moment she entered the makeup trailer at 6 a.m. "It's almost like your cup of coffee," says Fallon. "She gets you psyched for the day."
More important, the actress whose difficult childhood is as well-known as any of her films has made great strides in making peace with her parents. Last year, after a lifetime of estrangement, she became close to her father, 72-year-old John Barrymore, as he succumbed to a rare form of bone-marrow cancer. The death also brought her close once again to her mother, Jaid, 58, to whom she rarely spoke for a decade after emerging from rehab and becoming legally emancipated from her parents in 1991. "I tried to let go and just focus on my relationships for a minute," says Barrymore, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Hollywood Hills photo studio, wearing threadbare jeans and a faded green T-shirt. "My work is such that they tend to go on the back burner. I've really been working hard to find a balance."
That balancing act was employed as Barrymore celebrated her 30th—a weeklong celebration that included a Palm Springs slumber party, lots of presents (a photo of her grandmother and a replica of Joan Crawford's Mommie Dearest bathrobe among them) and a bit of self-discovery. "It made me want to look at myself and see what behavior I want to bring into my 30s," she says, "and what I want to leave in my 20s." The first trait she chucked: guilt. "Because I'm such a people-pleaser and from an unstable background," she says, "I translate too many things into guilt. I'm ready to let go of that."
But she'll keep holding on to the Brazilian-born Moretti—she calls him "Fab" or "Fabby"—whom Barrymore, a Strokes fan, met backstage at a 2002 California rock festival. These days they have the occasional squabble—she quit smoking, he's, well, not there yet—but after two blink-and-you-missed-them marriages (to restaurateur Jeremy Thomas in 1994 and actor Tom Green in 2001), her relationship with Moretti "is the best Drew has ever had," says a pal. Seconds Nancy Juvonen, her best friend and producing partner for the last 10 years: "She and Fab just love each other. It's a good relationship."
And a gooey one—still. At a recent Barrymore photo shoot, Moretti snuggles with her and showers her with compliments after a wardrobe change. "Ah, bellissimo!" he coos. "You're beautiful." She blushes and blows him a kiss. "If you think so, that's all that matters to me." Says Fallon: "Neither has any pretension about them. They're two cool dudes who totally enjoy each other." Still, after her failed marriages and a string of busted relationships that include Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson, actor Luke Wilson and singer Jamie Walters, Barrymore has learned to proceed cautiously when discussing matters of the heart. "Sometimes you make mistakes," she told PEOPLE last year of her ill-fated romances, "and you have to just learn from them and move on." Does she see herself growing old with Moretti? "That's a really personal question. Like I said, I love him." Who holds the remote at night? "You're assuming we sleep together." Well, do you? She cracks up. But she does drop her guard momentarily, to deny tabloid reports that they are engaged. "That's exactly why I've become more private about this stuff," she says. "One week I read we're breaking up; the next I see we're engaged. Just know it's good."
Even when other things in Barrymore's life are at their worst. She leaned on Moretti last year as she tended to her terminally ill father, John, who died of multiple myeloma Nov. 29. "Thank God she had Fabrizio," says Fallon of Moretti, who flew to Toronto, where Barrymore was wrapping Fever Pitch, to comfort her after John died. The loss was tough on Barrymore, who in her 1990 autobiography Little Girl Lost (co-authored by People Assistant Managing Editor Todd Gold) bitterly recounted her father's role—or lack thereof—in her sometimes harrowing childhood. Following a long line of Barrymore actors (including grandfather John, great-aunt Ethel and great-uncle Lionel), Drew made her debut in a Puppy Chow commercial at 11 months, but her rise to stardom after 1982's E.T. was quickly followed by a downward spiral: drinking by 9, doing cocaine at 12 and emerging from rehab at 14 after multiple visits. Throughout it all, her alcoholic father countered physical blows—Barrymore's first memory of her father is when he threw her, then 3, against a wall during a drunken fit—with emotional abuse, seeking a connection only when in search of a handout. "I couldn't figure out how to deal with him," she recalls.
In recent years, Barrymore had finally come to terms with his cold persona. "I don't want to be crippled by things that happened in the past," she says. "He was a free bird, you know? He couldn't handle being a father." After sporadic contact with him throughout her 20s, she began supporting him financially a few years ago, putting him up in a Malibu home—"It gave me peace of mind to know he was taken care of "—and moving him into a Santa Monica assisted-care facility last year after the cancer diagnosis.
Though "we were still sort of estranged," when she learned last spring of her father's grave prognosis (he was told he had as little as seven months to live), she decided to finally forge the relationship they'd never had. "I thought, even if it's seven months, I want to get to know this person," she says. That's what she did, visiting him on weekends off from Fever Pitch as his health declined. "Sometimes I'd just sit there, and he'd say, 'Stop staring at me,' " she recalls. "Then sometimes we'd talk about the past." Finally, during one visit, as Barrymore dangled her legs from his bedside chair, "He looked at my feet and said, 'Perfect. You were made perfect.' I just started crying. I was like, 'Thank you, God, for letting me have this moment.' "
About a month before John died, Barrymore also brought mom Jaid to his bedside, reuniting the parents who had split before she was born. "I didn't want to have this closure just for myself," says Barrymore. "It was an incredible day." The evening was just as memorable, as mother and daughter dined together and began patching up their own differences. "We're easing the pain of not knowing each other, and it feels really good," she says. "Weirdly, because of them, the two people who made me grow up way too early and too fast, I'm growing up again, the right way."
Anything would be an improvement over her first go-round. Thanks to her newfound sense of self, she's resolved to rein in the outrageous post-rehab behavior that propelled her through much of the '90s. "Back then," she says, "I had a spontaneity and wildness that I totally don't have now." In other words: She probably won't be undressing so much in public. "No more Playboy. No more standing on Letterman's desk," she says, recalling her infamous 1995 double feature of flashed flesh. "I don't regret any of it; I'm just past it."
Instead she's looking forward, plotting her next moves both onscreen and off. She'll appear in December's drama Lucky You, as a lounge singer who falls for professional poker player Eric Bana, but she's also eagerly hoping to direct a film herself. "I dream about it every day," she says. She's less certain about if, and when, she'll settle down with Moretti ("Not today," she says, smiling), nor are little Drews in the cards anytime soon. "I still feel too young," says Barrymore, though she "definitely" sees motherhood in her future. But for now, "I'm still trying to figure out exactly who I am and what I want to be. I'm getting there, at my own pace."
Jason Lynch. Todd Gold in Los Angeles
