Kevin Bacon

Kevin Norwood Bacon(born July 8, 1958)is an American actor. Known for hisleading manandcharacter roles, Bacon has received numerous accolades, including aGolden Globe Award, aScreen Actors Guild Award, and a nomination for aPrimetime Emmy Award.
Bacon made his feature film debut inNational Lampoon's Animal House(1978) and performed inDiner(1982) before his breakthrough role in the musical-drama filmFootloose(1984). Since then, he has starred in critically acclaimed films such asJFK(1991),A Few Good Men(1992),Apollo 13(1995),Mystic River(2003), andFrost/Nixon(2008). Other notable credits includeFriday the 13th(1980),Tremors(1990),The River Wild(1994),The Woodsman(2004),Crazy, Stupid, Love(2011),X-Men: First Class(2011), andPatriots Day(2016). Bacon has also directed the filmsLosing Chase(1996) andLoverboy(2005).
On television, Bacon received aGolden Globe Awardand aScreen Actors Guild Awardfor his role asLt. Col. Michael Stroblin theHBOoriginal filmTaking Chance(2009). He starred in theFoxdrama seriesThe Followingfrom 2013 to 2015. Bacon played the title role inAmazon Prime VideoseriesI Love Dickfrom 2016 to 2017; he was nominated for aGolden Globe Awardfor his work on the show. From 2019 to 2022, he starred in theShowtimeseriesCity on a Hill.
The Guardiannamed Bacon one of the best actors never to have received anAcademy Awardnomination.In 2003, he received a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame.
Bacon's prolific career in a variety of genres has led him to become associated with the concept of interconnectedness among people, as evidenced by the trivia game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". He is a brand ambassador for British mobile network operatorEEand has been featured in several ads for the company.Bacon is married to actressKyra Sedgwick.
Bacon was born and raised in a close-knit family inPhiladelphia.He is the youngest of six children. His mother, Ruth Hilda (née Holmes; 1916–1991), taught at an elementary school and was a liberal activist,while his father,Edmund Bacon(1910–2005), was anurban plannerwho served as executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and authored the seminal textDesign of Cities.
Bacon attendedJulia R. Masterman Schoolin theSpring Gardensection of Philadelphia for both middle and high school.
At age 16, in 1975, Bacon won a full state-funded scholarship to thePennsylvania Governor's School for the ArtsatBucknell UniversityinLewisburg, Pennsylvania,a five-week arts program where he studied theater underGlory Van Scott. The experience solidified Bacon's passion for the arts.
Bacon left home at age 17 to pursue a theater career in New York City, where he appeared in a production at theCircle in the Square Theater School. "I wanted life, man, the real thing", he later recalled toNancy MillsofCosmopolitan. "The message I got was 'The arts are it. Business is the devil's work. Art and creative expression are next to godliness.' Combine that with an immense ego and you wind up with an actor."Bacon's debut in thefraternitycomedyNational Lampoon's Animal House(1978) did not lead to the fame he had sought, and Bacon returned to waiting tables and auditioning for small roles in theater.He briefly worked on the television soap operasSearch for Tomorrow(1979) andGuiding Light(1980–81) in New York.
In 1980, he appeared in the slasher filmFriday the 13th.Some of his early-stage work includedGetting Out, performed at New York'sPhoenix Theater, andFlux, atSecond Stage Theatreduring their 1981–1982 season.
In 1982, he won anObie Awardfor his role inForty Deuce,and soon afterward he made his Broadway debut inSlab Boys, with then-unknownsSean PennandVal Kilmer. However, it was not until he portrayed Timothy Fenwick that same year inBarry Levinson's filmDiner– costarringSteve Guttenberg,Daniel Stern,Mickey Rourke,Tim Daly, andEllen Barkin– that he made an indelible impression on film critics and moviegoers alike.
Bolstered by the attention garnered by his performance inDiner, Bacon starred inFootloose(1984).Richard Corliss ofTIMElikenedFootlooseto theJames DeanclassicRebel Without a Causeand the oldMickey Rooney/Judy Garlandmusicals, commenting that the film includes "motifs on book burning, mid-life crisis, AWOL parents, fatal car crashes, drug enforcement, and Bible Belt vigilantism."To prepare for the role, Bacon enrolled at a high school as a transfer student named "Ren McCormick" and studied teenagers before leaving in the middle of the day.Bacon earned strong reviews forFootloose.Bacon's critical and box office success led to a period oftypecastingin roles similar to the two he portrayed inDinerandFootloose, and he had difficulty shaking this on-screen image. For the next several years he chose films that cast him against either type and experienced, by his own estimation, a career slump.
After a cameo inJohn Hughes's 1987 comedyPlanes, Trains and Automobiles,Bacon starred in John Hughes's 1988 comedyShe's Having a Baby,and the following year he was in another comedy calledThe Big Picture.
In 1990, Bacon had two successful roles. He played a character who saved his town from under-the-earth "graboid" monsters in the comedy/horror filmTremors,and he portrayed an earnest medical student experimenting with death inJoel Schumacher'sFlatliners.
In Bacon's next project he starred oppositeElizabeth PerkinsinHe Said, She Said. Despite lukewarm reviews and low audience turnout,He Said, She Saidwas illuminating for Bacon. Required to play a character with sexist attitudes, he admitted that the role was not that large a stretch for him.
By 1991, Bacon began to give up the idea of playing leading men in big-budget films and to remake himself as a character actor. "The only way I was going to be able to work on 'A' projects with really 'A' directors was if I wasn't the guy who was starring", he confided toThe New York Timeswriter Trip Gabriel. "You can't afford to set up a $40 million movie if you don't have your star."He performed that year as gay prostitute Willie O'Keefe inOliver Stone'sJFKand went on to play a prosecuting attorney in the military courtroom dramaA Few Good Men.Later that year he returned to the theater to play inSpike Heels, directed byMichael Greif.
In 1994, Bacon earned aGolden Globenomination for his role inThe River Wild,oppositeMeryl Streep. He described the film to Chase inCosmopolitanas a "grueling shoot", in which "every one of us fell out of the boat at one point or another and had to be saved".
His next film,Murder in the First, earned him the Broadcast Film Critic's Association Award in 1995,the same year that he starred in theblockbusterhitApollo 13.Bacon played a trademark dark role once again inSleepers(1996).This part starkly contrasted with his appearance in the lighthearted romantic comedy,Picture Perfect(1997).
Bacon made his debut as a director with the television filmLosing Chase(1996), which was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, and won one.Bacon again resurrected his oddball mystique that year as a mentally-challenged houseguest inDigging to Chinaand as a disc jockey corrupted bypayolainTelling Lies in America.As the executive producer ofWild Things(1998), Bacon reserved a supporting role for himself and went on to star inStir of Echoes(1999), directed byDavid Koepp.
In 2000, he appeared inPaul Verhoeven'sHollow Man.Bacon,Colin FirthandRachel Blancharddepict aménage à troisin their film,Where the Truth Lies.Bacon and directorAtom Egoyancondemned theMPAAratings board decision to rate the film "NC-17" rather than the preferable "R". Bacon commented: "I don't get it, when I see films (that) are extremely violent, extremely objectionable sometimes in terms of the roles that women play, slide by with an R, no problem, because the people happen to have more of their clothes on."That same year, he played the gruff father in the family filmMy Dog Skip.
In 2003, Bacon acted withSean PennandTim RobbinsinClint Eastwood's movieMystic River. He was again acclaimed for a dark starring role playing an offending pedophile on parole inThe Woodsman(2004), for which he was nominated for best actor and received the Independent Spirit Award.
In 2005, Bacon was in the comedy filmBeauty ShopwithQueen Latifah. He appeared in theHBO Filmsproduction ofTaking Chance(2009), based on an eponymous story written by Lieutenant ColonelMichael Strobl, an AmericanDesert Stormwar veteran.The film premiered on HBO on February 21, 2009. Bacon won a Golden Globe Award and aScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Moviefor his role.
On July 15, 2010, it was confirmed that Bacon would appear inMatthew Vaughn'sX-Men: First Classas mutant villainSebastian Shaw.The film was released in 2011, the same year as the romantic comedyCrazy, Stupid, Love, in which Kevin portrayed a co-worker involved in an affair.
In March 2012, Bacon was featured in a performance ofDustin Lance Black's play,8– a staged reenactment of thefederal trialthat overturned California'sProp 8 banon same-sex marriage – as AttorneyCharles J. Cooper.The production was held at theWilshire Ebell Theatreand broadcast on YouTube to raise money for theAmerican Foundation for Equal Rights.
From 2013 to 2015, Bacon starred as Ryan Hardy in the FOX television seriesThe Following.In 2013, he won aSaturn Award for Best Actor on Televisionfor that role.In 2015, he appeared in the crime filmBlack Mass, which starredJohnny Depp.
In 2015, he said in aHuffington Postinterview he would like to return to theTremorsfranchise.However, Bacon did not appear inTremors 5: Bloodline(2015). He starred inPatriots Dayin 2016, which was about the2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
In 1995, Kevin formed a band calledThe Bacon Brotherswith his brother,Michael. The duo has released seven albums.Bacon also sings in a variety of other media; he has serenaded his goats onInstagram,and sings with the band theOld 97'sin his role as himself inThe Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.
Beginning in 2012, Bacon has appeared in a major advertising campaign forEEin the United Kingdom, based on the Six Degrees concept and his various film roles.In 2015, he became a commercial spokesperson for the U.S. egg industry.
Bacon is the subject of thetriviagame titled "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", based on the idea that, due to his prolificscreencareer covering a diverse range of genres, any Hollywood actor can be linked to another in a handful of steps based on their association with Bacon. The name of the game derives from the idea ofsix degrees of separation. Although he was initially dismayed by the game, thememestuck, and Bacon eventually embraced it, forming the charitable initiativeSixDegrees.org, asocial networking serviceintended to link people and charities to each other.
The measure of proximity to Bacon has been mathematically formalized as theBacon numberand can be referenced at websites including Oracle of Bacon, which is in turn based upon Wikipedia data (and formerly fromInternet Movie Databasedata). In 2012, Google added a feature to their search engine, whereby searching for an actor's name followed by the words "Bacon Number" will show the ways in which that actor is connected to Kevin Bacon.This feature is no longer active.
A similar measurement exists in the mathematics community, where one measures how far one is removed from co-writing a mathematical paper with the prolific and itinerant mathematicianPaul Erdős. This is done by means of theErdős number, which is 0 forPaul Erdőshimself, 1 for someone who co-wrote an article with him, 2 for someone who co-wrote with someone who co-wrote with him, etc. People have combined the Bacon number and theErdős numberto form theErdős–Bacon number, which is the sum of the two.
Bacon has been married to actressKyra Sedgwicksince September 4, 1988; they met on the set of thePBSversion ofLanford Wilson's playLemon Sky. He has said: "The time I was hitting what I considered to be bottom was also the time I met my wife, our kids were born, good things were happening. And I was able to keep supporting myself; that always gave me strength."Bacon and Sedgwick have starred together inPyrates,Murder in the First,The Woodsman, andLoverboy. They have two children,Travis Sedgwick(b. 1989) andSosie Ruth(b. 1992). They reside on theUpper West SideofManhattan.Bacon was previously in a five-year relationship with actressTracy Pollan, in the 1980s.
Bacon has spoken out for theseparation of church and state,and toldThe Timesin 2005 that hedid not "believe in God."He has also said that he is notanti-religion.
Bacon and Sedgwick appeared inwill.i.am's video"It's a New Day", which was released followingBarack Obama's 2008 presidential win.
The pair lost part of their savings in thePonzi schemeof infamous swindlerBernie Madoff.
Bacon and Sedgwick learned in 2011, via their appearance on the PBS TV seriesFinding Your RootswithHenry Louis Gates, that they are ninth cousins, once removed.They also appeared in a videopromoting the "Bill of Reproductive Rights", supporting among other things a woman's right to choose and have access to birth control.