HOLLYWOOD -- When she was 14, Drew Barrymore wrote an autobiography she titled Little Girl Lost, which chronicled her bouts with drug and alcohol dependency, a suicide attempt and her subsequent rehabilitation.

It's been a turbulent 12 years since then, but Barrymore feels she has finally found and embraced the lost child she once was.

The actress gives much of the credit to Tom Green, the Ottawa shock comic she married in July. They met during the filming of Charlie's Angels and spent a year teasing the press with rumours of marriages impending, sanctified and annulled.

Barrymore insists they needed a sense of humour to get them through some trying times. Shortly after they were engaged, Green was diagnosed with testicular cancer. In February, her Beverly Hills home burned to the ground, and the couple escaped with only a few possessions, including her photo albums.

Those albums contained photos of her legendary theatrical family, including her father, John Barrymore Jr., and her mother, Ildiko Jaid Barrymore. Drew Barrymore has kept in touch with her alcoholic and drug-addicted father, offering him emotional and financial support, but was granted legal emancipation from Jaid when she turned 15.

Mother and daughter had no communication until this year, when the impetus for a reunion came in the form of Barrymore's new film, Riding In Cars With Boys.

It's based on Beverly Donofrio's bittersweet autobiography about getting pregnant at 15, marrying the child's high school-dropout father and watching him squander their hopes and future on alcohol and drugs.

"It didn't take long for me to see the similarities between Beverly and my mother," Barrymore says.

"My mom was a single woman abandoned by an abusive, alcoholic drug addict. I realized it couldn't have been all that easy for her to raise me, especially in Hollywood.

"I must have seemed like a precocious little brat much of the time because I was the one who was working and making the money."

Drew appeared in her first commercial before her first birthday, and at age four made her film debut playing William Hurt's daughter in Altered States.

At age seven, she achieved stardom as the cherubic little girl in E.T.

"I was always too old for my age. I always thought I was 10 years old when I was born," Barrymore says.

"I had no idea I would be so overcome with trying to understand my own mother when I started filming Riding In Cars, but that's what happened. It was very cathartic, but it was also troubling. Fortunately for me, Tom had come to stay with me for the final four months of filming."

The more Barrymore unburdened herself on Green, the more he insisted she initiate a reconciliation with Jaid.

"I kept saying it would be too difficult and too traumatic, but Tom said I would suffer incredible guilt later in life if I didn't at least give it a try."

She chose Mother's Day for its obvious symbolism.

"I took Tom along with me for our first few meetings, but eventually my mom and I found we could go places on our own."

Barrymore says she is gradually putting her childhood into perspective.

"My mother and I had a very tortured relationship that caused us both a lot of pain, but I had also idealized my relationship with my father. He wasn't around to make mistakes. My mother had to shoulder all the blame for my unhappiness and my rebellion."

Green gave Barrymore an unforgettable present last December when he arranged to have Jaid celebrate Christmas with them at his parents' home in Ottawa.

"Tom's family is very traditional and that's something I've never had," Barrymore says. "They're all really secure, really well-grounded people with great senses of humour. My mom got along with everyone so well over those three days. It was so wonderful for me. It was a real family Christmas. It was my first."

Barrymore says Green "has his neuroses just as I have mine, but he is so wonderful. He is my source of strength.

"The thing I loved most about Tom right from the beginning was that I really got to be myself around him. He loves me for who I am and not the image I've created for myself. He makes me laugh and that's so important.

"I love the risk that marriage brings with it," she continues. "I know our marriage is worth fighting for and we're both fighters.

"What Tom brings to the marriage is his knowledge of how a family works and he has a great sense of objectivity. I, on the other hand, have lived all my life in Hollywood, so I know how this town works and I have learned the hard way how to avoid or at least survive the pitfalls."

Barrymore says they talk about having kids, but she feels "still too selfish to have children right now even though nothing is more important to me and of a greater priority.

"I don't know if it will happen next week, next year or five years from now, but I know it will happen. What's most important is that I know I have found the man I want to have my children with."


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