Kevin Norwood Bacon (born July 8, 1958)
is an American actor. His films include the musical-drama film ''
Footloose'' (1984), the controversial historical conspiracy legal thriller ''
JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
'' (1991), the legal drama ''
A Few Good Men'' (1992), the historical docudrama ''
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted af ...
'' (1995), and the mystery drama ''
Mystic River'' (2003). Bacon is also known for voicing the title character in ''
Balto'' (1995), and has taken on darker roles, such as that of a sadistic guard in ''
Sleepers'' (1996), and troubled former child abuser in ''
The Woodsman'' (2004). He is further known for the hit comedies ''
National Lampoon's Animal House'' (1978), ''
Diner
A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a co ...
'' (1982), ''
Tremors'' (1990) and ''
Crazy, Stupid, Love'' (2011). His other well-known films are ''
Friday the 13th'' (1980), ''
Flatliners
''Flatliners'' is a 1990 American psychological horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Michael Douglas and Rick Bieber, and written by Peter Filardi. It stars Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, a ...
'' (1990), ''
The River Wild'' (1994), ''
Wild Things'' (1998), ''
Stir of Echoes'' (1999), ''
Hollow Man'' (2000), ''
Frost/Nixon'' (2008), ''
X-Men: First Class'' (2011), ''
Black Mass'' (2015) and ''
Patriots Day
Patriots' Day (Patriot's Day in Maine) is an annual event, formalized as a legal holiday or a special observance day in six states, commemorating the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Menotomy, some of the first battles of the American Revo ...
'' (2016). He is equally prolific on television, having starred in the
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
drama series ''
The Following
''The Following'' is an American crime thriller television series created by Kevin Williamson, and jointly produced by Outerbanks Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television.
The first season follows former FBI agent Ryan Hardy ( Kevin Baco ...
'' (2013–2015). For the
HBO original film ''
Taking Chance
''Taking Chance'' is a 2009 American historical drama television film directed by Ross Katz, from a screenplay by Michael Strobl and Katz, based on the journal of the same name by Strobl, who also serves as military consultant. Kevin Bacon's po ...
'' (2009), Bacon won a
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
and a
Screen Actors Guild Award
Screen Actors Guild Awards (also known as SAG Awards) are accolades given by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The award was founded in 1952 to recognize outstanding performances in movie and ...
, also receiving a
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...
nomination. More recently, Bacon portrayed the title character, and was the series lead, of the Amazon Prime television series ''
I Love Dick
''I Love Dick'' is a novel by American artist and author Chris Kraus. Published by Semiotext(e) in 1997, ''I Love Dick'' merges fiction and memoir formats to explore the writer's psycho-sexual obsession with the eponymous "Dick", a media theori ...
'', for which he was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
.
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' named him one of the best actors never to have received an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment in ...
nomination. In 2003, Bacon received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...
for his contributions to the motion picture industry.
Bacon has become associated with the concept of interconnectedness among people, having been popularized by the game "
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". In 2007, he created
SixDegrees.org, a charitable foundation.
He is a brand ambassador for British mobile network operator
EE and has been featured in several ads for the company.
Early life and education
Bacon, the youngest of six children, was born and raised in a close-knit family in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
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 an urban planner who served for many years as executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and authored the seminal text ''
Design of Cities''.
Bacon attended
Julia R. Masterman High School
The Julia Reynolds Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School is a middle and secondary school located in Philadelphia. It is a magnet school, ranked 10th in the nation, located in the Spring Garden neighborhood. Prior to 1958, the school bu ...
for both middle and high school. At age 16, in 1975, Bacon won a full scholarship to and attended the
Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts
(''Seize the Day'')
, city = Erie
, state = Pennsylvania
, country = USA
, type = Residential Public
, established = 1973
, district =
, director = Douglas Woods
, faculty =
, grades ...
at
Bucknell University
Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineerin ...
, a state-funded five-week arts program at which he studied theater under
Glory Van Scott
Glory Van Scott (born June 1, 1947) is an educator, writer, actress and dancer. She is a former principal dancer with the Katherine Dunham, Agnes de Mille and Talley Beatty dance companies and has performed in the United States and around the w ...
. The experience solidified Bacon's passion for the arts.
Acting career
Early work
Bacon left home at age 17 to pursue a theater career in New York City, where he appeared in a production at the
Circle in the Square Theater School. "I wanted life, man, the real thing", he later recalled to
Nancy Mills
Nancy Fannie Millis (10 April 192229 September 2012) was an Australian microbiologist and Emeritus Professor who introduced fermentation technologies to Australia, and created the first applied microbiology course taught in an Australian univers ...
of ''
Cosmopolitan''. "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."
[''Cosmopolitan''. March 1991, p. 92.]
Bacon's debut in the
fraternity
A fraternity (from Latin ''frater'': "brother"; whence, "brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity in ...
comedy ''
National 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 operas ''
Search for Tomorrow'' (1979) and ''
Guiding Light
''Guiding Light'' (known as ''The Guiding Light'' before 1975) is an American radio and television soap opera. It is listed in ''Guinness World Records'' as the third longest-running drama in television in American history. ''Guiding Light'' a ...
'' (1980–81) in New York.
1980s
In 1980, he appeared in the slasher film
''Friday the 13th''. Some of his early stage work included ''
Getting Out'', performed at New York's
Phoenix Theater, and ''
Flux
Flux describes any effect that appears to pass or travel (whether it actually moves or not) through a surface or substance. Flux is a concept in applied mathematics and vector calculus which has many applications to physics. For transport ...
'', at
Second Stage Theatre
Second Stage Theater is a theater company founded in 1979 by Robyn Goodman and Carole Rothman and located in Manhattan, New York City. It produces both new plays and revivals of contemporary American plays by new playwrights and established wri ...
during their 1981–1982 season.
In 1982, he won an
Obie Award for his role in ''
Forty Deuce'',
and soon afterward he made his Broadway debut in ''
Slab Boys'', with then-unknowns
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama '' Mystic River'' (2003) and the biopic ''Milk'' (2008).
Penn began his acting career in televis ...
and
Val Kilmer. However, it was not until he portrayed Timothy Fenwick that same year in
Barry Levinson
Barry Lee Levinson (born April 6, 1942) is an American filmmaker, comedian and actor. Levinson's best-known works are mid-budget comedy drama and drama films such as '' Diner'' (1982); '' The Natural'' (1984); '' Good Morning, Vietnam'' (1987) ...
's film ''
Diner
A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a co ...
''costarring
Steve Guttenberg,
Daniel Stern,
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke Jr. (; born September 16, 1952) is an American actor and former boxer who has appeared primarily as a leading man in drama, action, and thriller films.
During the star of the 1980s, Rourke played supporting roles ...
,
Tim Daly
James Timothy Daly (born March 1, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Joe Hackett on the NBC sitcom ''Wings'' and his voice role as Clark Kent/Superman in '' Superman: The Animated Series'', as well as his recurring role a ...
, and
Ellen Barkin
Ellen Rona Barkin (born April 16, 1954) is an American actress and a producer. Her breakthrough role was in the 1982 film '' Diner'', and in the following years, she had starring roles in films such as ''Tender Mercies'' (1983), ''Eddie and the ...
that he made an indelible impression on film critics and moviegoers alike.
Bolstered by the attention garnered by his performance in ''Diner'', Bacon starred in ''
Footloose'' (1984).
Richard Corliss of ''TIME'' likened ''Footloose'' to the
James Dean
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, ''Rebel Without a Cause' ...
classic ''
Rebel Without a Cause
''Rebel Without a Cause'' is a 1955 American coming-of-age drama film about emotionally confused suburban
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that ...
'' and the old
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; other pseudonym Mickey Maguire; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the ...
/
Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in ''The ...
musicals, 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 for ''Footloose''.
Bacon's critical and box office success led to a period of
typecasting
In film, television, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character, one or more particular roles, or characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ...
in roles similar to the two he portrayed in ''Diner'' and ''Footloose'', 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 in
John Hughes's 1987 comedy ''
Planes, Trains and Automobiles'', Bacon starred in John Hughes's 1988 comedy ''
She's Having a Baby'',
and the following year he was in another comedy called ''
The Big Picture''.
1990s
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 film ''
Tremors'', and he portrayed an earnest medical student experimenting with death in
Joel Schumacher
Joel T. Schumacher (; August 29, 1939June 22, 2020) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Raised in New York City by his mother, Schumacher graduated from Parsons School of Design and originally became a fashion designer. He ...
's ''
Flatliners
''Flatliners'' is a 1990 American psychological horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Michael Douglas and Rick Bieber, and written by Peter Filardi. It stars Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, a ...
''.
In Bacon's next project he starred opposite
Elizabeth Perkins in ''
He Said, She Said''. Despite lukewarm reviews and low audience turnout, ''He Said, She Said'' was 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 to ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' writer 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 in
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sca ...
's ''
JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
'' and went on to play a prosecuting attorney in the military courtroom drama ''
A Few Good Men''. Later that year he returned to the theater to play in ''Spike Heels'', directed by
Michael Greif.
In 1994, Bacon earned a
Golden Globe
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
nomination for his role in ''
The River Wild'',
opposite
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Often described as "the best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accent adaptability. She has received numerous accolades throu ...
. He described the film to Chase in ''Cosmopolitan'' as 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 the
blockbuster
Blockbuster or Block Buster may refer to:
*Blockbuster (entertainment) a term coined for an extremely successful movie, from which most other uses are derived.
Corporations
* Blockbuster (retailer), a defunct video and game rental chain
** Blo ...
hit ''
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted af ...
''. Bacon played a trademark dark role once again in ''
Sleepers'' (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 film ''
Losing 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 in ''
Digging to China
''Digging to China'' is a 1997 American drama film that marked the cinematic directorial debut of actor Timothy Hutton and the screen debut of Evan Rachel Wood. The screenplay by Karen Janszen focuses on the friendship forged between a pre-teen gi ...
''
and as a disc jockey corrupted by
payola in ''
Telling Lies in America''.
As the executive producer of ''
Wild Things'' (1998), Bacon reserved a supporting role for himself and went on to star in ''
Stir of Echoes'' (1999), directed by
David Koepp
David Koepp (; born June 9, 1963) is an American filmmaker. Koepp is the ninth most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of U.S. box office receipts with a total gross of over $2.3 billion.
Koepp has achieved both critical and commercial ...
.
2000s
upBacon at the 2004 ">Cannes Film Festival
In 2000, he appeared in
Paul Verhoeven's ''
Hollow Man.'' Bacon,
Colin Firth
Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor and producer. He was identified in the mid-1980s with the " Brit Pack" of rising young British actors, undertaking a challenging series of roles, including leading roles in '' A M ...
and
Rachel Blanchard depict a
ménage à trois in their film, ''
Where the Truth Lies''. Bacon and director
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan (; hy, Աթոմ Եղոյեան, translit=Atom Yeghoyan; born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian filmmaker. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Egoyan m ...
have condemned the
MPAA
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...
ratings board decision to rate the film "
NC-17
The Motion Picture Association film rating system is used in the United States and its territories to rate a motion picture's suitability for certain audiences based on its content. The system and the ratings applied to individual motion pictures ...
" 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."
In 2003 he acted with
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama '' Mystic River'' (2003) and the biopic ''Milk'' (2008).
Penn began his acting career in televis ...
and
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for portraying Andy Dufresne in the film '' The Shawshank Redemption ''(1994), and has won an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards for his role ...
in
Clint Eastwood
Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' D ...
's movie ''
Mystic River''.
Bacon was again acclaimed for a dark starring role playing an offending pedophile on parole in ''
The Woodsman'' (2004), for which he was nominated for best actor and received the Independent Spirit Award. He appeared in the
HBO Films production of ''
Taking Chance
''Taking Chance'' is a 2009 American historical drama television film directed by Ross Katz, from a screenplay by Michael Strobl and Katz, based on the journal of the same name by Strobl, who also serves as military consultant. Kevin Bacon's po ...
'', based on an eponymous story written by Lieutenant Colonel
Michael Strobl
Michael R. Strobl (born c. 1966) is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer from Stafford, Virginia.
Michael joined the service when he was 17 years old, as told in the movie ''Taking Chance'' (2009).
After serving in Operation Desert Storm in 199 ...
, an American
Desert Storm
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
war veteran. The film premiered on HBO on February 21, 2009. Bacon won a Golden Globe Award and a
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role.
2010s
upBacon at the in 2015">Toronto Film Festival in 2015
On July 15, 2010, it was confirmed that Bacon would appear in
Matthew Vaughn's ''
X-Men: First Class'' as mutant villain
Sebastian Shaw.
In March 2012, Bacon was featured in a performance of
Dustin Lance Black
Dustin Lance Black (born June 10, 1974) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and LGBT rights activist. He is known for writing the film ''Milk'', for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2009. He has also sub ...
's play, ''
8'' – a staged reenactment of the
federal trial that overturned California's
Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage – as Attorney
Charles J. Cooper.
The production was held at the
Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the
American Foundation for Equal Rights.
From 2013 to 2015, Bacon starred as Ryan Hardy in the FOX television series ''
The Following
''The Following'' is an American crime thriller television series created by Kevin Williamson, and jointly produced by Outerbanks Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television.
The first season follows former FBI agent Ryan Hardy ( Kevin Baco ...
''. In 2013, he won a
Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television
The following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Actor on Television (formerly Best Genre TV Actor).
The award is presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, honoring the work of actors in science ficti ...
for that role.
In 2015, he said in a ''
Huffington Post'' interview he would like to return to the
''Tremors'' franchise. However, Bacon did not appear in ''
Tremors 5: Bloodline'' (2015).
Advertising work
Beginning in 2012, Bacon has appeared in a major advertising campaign for the
EE mobile network in 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.
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Bacon is the subject of the
trivia
Trivia is information and data that are considered to be of little value. It can be contrasted with general knowledge and common sense.
Latin Etymology
The ancient Romans used the word ''triviae'' to describe where one road split or forke ...
game titled "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," based on the idea that, due to his prolific
screen career 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 of
six degrees of separation.
Although he was initially dismayed by the game, the
meme
A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
stuck, and Bacon eventually embraced it, forming the charitable initiative
SixDegrees.org, a
social networking service
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, ac ...
intended to link people and charities to each other.
The measure of proximity to Bacon has been mathematically formalized as the
Bacon number
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or Bacon's Law is a parlor game where players challenge each other to arbitrarily choose an actor and then connect them to another actor via a film that both actors have appeared in together, repeating this process to ...
and can be referenced at websites including Oracle of Bacon, which is in turn based upon
Internet Movie Database
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
data. 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 mathematician
Paul Erdős. This is done by means of the
Erdős number, which is 0 for
Paul Erdős himself, 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 the
Erdős number to form the
Erdős–Bacon number, which is the sum of the two.
Music
In 1995, Kevin formed a band called
The Bacon Brothers with his brother,
Michael. The duo has released seven albums. Kevin Bacon also sings in a variety of other media; he has serenaded his goats on
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
, and sings with the band the
Old 97's in his role as himself in ''
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special
''The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special'' is an American television special written and directed by James Gunn for the streaming service Disney+, based on Marvel Comics featuring the superhero team Guardians of the Galaxy. It is the s ...
''.
Personal life
Bacon has been married to actress
Kyra Sedgwick since September 4, 1988; they met on the set of the
PBS version of
Lanford Wilson's play ''
Lemon 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 in ''
Pyrates,'' ''
Murder in the First'', ''
The Woodsman'', and ''
Loverboy
Loverboy is a Canadian rock band formed in 1979 in Calgary, Alberta. Loverboy's hit singles, particularly " Turn Me Loose" and "Working for the Weekend", have become arena rock staples and are still heard on many classic rock and classic hits ...
''. They have two children, Travis Sedgwick (b. 1989) and
Sosie Ruth (b. 1992). They reside on the
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...
. Bacon was previously in a five-year relationship with actress
Tracy Pollan, in the 1980s.
Bacon has spoken out for the
separation of church and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...
, and told ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...
'' in 2005 that he
did not "believe in God." He has also said that he is not
anti-religion.
Bacon and Sedgwick appeared in
will.i.am's video
"It's a New Day", which was released following
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
's 2008 presidential win.
The pair lost part of their savings in the
Ponzi scheme of infamous swindler
Bernie Madoff
Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ ...
.
Bacon and Sedgwick learned in 2011, via their appearance on the PBS TV show ''
Finding Your Roots'' with
Henry Louis Gates, that they are ninth cousins, once removed. They also appeared in a video promoting the "Bill of Reproductive Rights", supporting among other things a woman's right to choose and have access to birth control.
Accolades
Awards and nominations
Other honors
* 2003, September 30: Inducted into
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...
with a star for his contribution to Motion Picture presented to him by the Chamber of Commerce.
* 2004: Received the John Cassavetes Award during the
Denver International Film Festival.
* 2005: Received the Copper Wing Tribute Award during the
Phoenix Film Festival.
* 2005: Received the American Rivera Award during the
Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
* 2010: Honored with the Joel Siegel Award by the
Broadcast Film Critics Association.
* 2015: Honored with the Career Achievement in Acting Award by the
Seattle International Film Festival
The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), held annually in Seattle, Washington since 1976, is among the top film festivals in North America. Audiences have grown steadily; the 2006 festival had 160,000 attendees. The SIFF runs for more th ...
.
See also
*
List of actors with Hollywood Walk of Fame motion picture stars
References
External links
*
*
*
*
Oracle of Bacon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacon, Kevin
1958 births
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
American atheists
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
The Bacon Brothers members
Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actor Golden Globe winners
Circle in the Square Theatre School alumni
Living people
Male actors from Philadelphia
Obie Award recipients
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners
Sedgwick family
People from the Upper West Side