A seven-year-old girl walks onto a television set wearing a pink smock dress and Mary Janes, her blonde curly ponytail tied with a bow. She slips, then gets up with a goofy grin and settles into her seat, her tiny feet dangling over the edge. “I’ve been waiting all my life to meet you,” she precociously tells the talk show host, Johnny Carson. “It’s a miracle!” The girl continues to giggle, joke and lisp, sending the audience into stitches as she pulls out her fake front teeth, dumping them on Carson’s desk and revealing her baby teeth below. She radiates wide-eyed wonder and worldliness in equal measure, and her star power is palpable.
It’s July 1982 and has just debuted to commercial and critical acclaim. Drew Barrymore, she of the hallowed Barrymore acting dynasty, plays little sister Gertie and is quickly dubbed a modern-day Shirley Temple. “She was seven going on 29,” said producer and director Steven Spielberg, who had hand-picked Barrymore
