Passage: John Drew Barrymore, 72

Barrymore, the largely absent father of actress Drew Barrymore, was the troubled heir to the acting dynasty that included John, Lionel and Ethel Barrymore. John Drew Barrymore appeared in a number of movies during the 1950s and '60s, including The Sundowners and While the City Sleeps, but his career fizzled as problems with drugs, drunken driving and violence surfaced. He left Hollywood for Italy to work in European movies but eventually returned to the United States, where he found sporadic film and TV work. He never apologized for his wild ways, once telling an interviewer, "I'm not a nice, clean-cut American kid at all. I'm just a human being. Those things just happen." Drew Barrymore was generous: "He was a cool cat," she said in a statement issued Monday. "Please smile when you think of him."
-- Associated Press