Vincent Price might have made his career in horror and playing creepy characters, IRL he was anything but. By the things I have read about him, he was good person. He was also a chef in his own right, so seeing him in the kitchen baking cookies with someone would have been completely normal for him. He was probably having the time of his life, sharing his love of food with a child.
I'm sure that photo documents one of the few healthy interactions Drew had during her childhood.
As far as I'm concerned, Vincent here is giving her the closest equivalent to a normal childhood experience he can give. Even then, I'm pretty sure this was still a photoshoot...
Probably the only guy doing something wholesome with her. The rest of Hollywood was giving her drinks and trying to make her an adult, she was that generation’s Millie Bobby Brown
Just to clarify this, the Barrymore family has its own separate Wikipedia page that describes them as an acting family back into the 1800s. They’re acting royalty old enough to have had members think acting in the US was a step down, and then that movie acting was a dirty secret.
Thanks for making me feel old because I was alive when Vincent Price was active. Hell he even had a #1 pop song, Thriller, with Michael Jackson! (who is also dead...jeez...)