Elaine Jacobs was a 16-year-old high school student in New York in 1931 when she went to see the John Barrymore film Svengali (1931). From that moment, she later said, she fell in love with Barrymore and vowed that one day she would marry him, even going so far as to change her name to Elaine Barrie. A few years later she read in the newspaper that Barrymore was in a New York hospital due to an "illness" (he was actually undergoing one of his periodic "cures" for his severe alcoholism). She sent him an adoring fan letter asking for an interview, and Barrymore wrote back and granted her one. After that first interview she returned to see him every day for more "interviews", and when Barrymore was finally discharged from the hospital he moved into the Jacobs' family apartment in New York City. Barrymore's divorce from actress Dolores Costello was still not final, and Elaine was 30 years younger than Barrymore, and when the press discovered the situation, they had a field day. Barrymore took Elaine and her mother out to nightclubs, parties and theaters all over the city, with reporters and photographers in hot pursuit. The coverage of the pair was so extensive that in 1935 the Associated Press named Elaine (along with presidential candidate Alf Landon) as one of the people who made that year most interesting.

Barrie and Barrymore were finally married in 1936, and it turned out to be a stormy one. She appeared in one of his films and made two shorts (one of which, How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (1937), was made by low-rent exploitation legend Dwain Esper) capitalizing on her status as Barrymore's wife. She also co-starred with him on Broadway and in several radio dramas. However, Barrymore's heavy drinking and serial infidelity resulted in several trial separations, and they finally divorced in 1940.

After the divorce Barrie wrote a book about her life with Barrymore, "All My Sins Remembered", and took a job at a New York brokerage firm. In the early 1950s she and her mother went to Haiti for a vacation, and they wound up staying there for nine years, developing a successful business exporting straw hats and handbags to high-end retail stores in the US. However, the worsening and dangerous political climate in Haiti resulted in their returning to New York in 1963. A few years later she and her mother moved the business and their residence to Trinidad. After her mother died, Elaine returned to the US.

She died in New York City on March 1, 2003.