Kevin Bacon

Kevin Norwood Bacon (born July 8, 1958)

In 2003, Bacon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His 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 operator EE and has been featured in advertisements for the company. Bacon is married to actress Kyra Sedgwick.

Early life and education Bacon was born and raised in a close-knit family in Philadelphia. He is the youngest of six children. His mother, Ruth Hilda (; 1916–1991), taught at an elementary school and was a liberal activist,

At age 16, in 1975, Bacon won a full state-funded scholarship to the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a five-week arts program where he studied theater under Glory Van Scott. The experience solidified Bacon's passion for the arts. Bacon's debut in the fraternity 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 (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, at Second Stage Theatre 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 and Val Kilmer. However, it was not until he portrayed Timothy Fenwick that same year in Barry Levinson's film Dinercostarring Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Tim Daly, and Ellen Barkinthat 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). 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 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,

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's Flatliners. He performed that year as gay prostitute Willie O'Keefe in Oliver Stone's JFK 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. 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 again resurrected his oddball mystique that year as a mentally-challenged houseguest in Digging to China

2000s

In 2000, he appeared in Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man. Bacon, Colin Firth and Rachel Blanchard depict a ménage à trois in their film, Where the Truth Lies. Bacon and director Atom Egoyan condemned the MPAA ratings 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 film My Dog Skip.

In 2003, Bacon acted with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins in Clint Eastwood's movie Mystic River. He 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.

In 2005, Bacon was in the comedy film Beauty Shop with Queen Latifah. He appeared in the HBO Films production of Taking Chance (2009), based on an eponymous story written by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl, an American Desert Storm 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

On July 15, 2010, it was confirmed that Bacon would appear in Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class as mutant villain Sebastian Shaw. The film was released in 2011, the same year as the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love, in which Bacon portrayed a co-worker involved in an affair.

In March 2012, Bacon was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black'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. In 2013, he won a Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television for that role. In 2015, he appeared in the crime film Black Mass, which starred Johnny Depp.

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). He starred in Patriots Day in 2016, which was about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Other ventures In 1995, Kevin formed a band called The Bacon Brothers with his brother, Michael. The duo has released seven albums. Bacon also sings in a variety of other media; he has serenaded his goats on Instagram, and sings with the band the Old 97's in his role as himself in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

Beginning in 2012, Bacon has appeared in a major advertising campaign for EE 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 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. Initially, Bacon was dismayed by the game but the meme stuck; eventually, he embraced it, forming the charitable initiative SixDegrees.org, a social networking service intended to link people and charities to each other.

The measure of proximity to Bacon has been mathematically formalized as the Bacon number and can be referenced at websites including Oracle of Bacon, which is in turn based upon Wikipedia data (and formerly from Internet Movie Database data). In 2012, Google added a feature to their search engine, whereby searching for an actor's name followed by the words "Bacon Number" would 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.

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 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, and told The 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's 2008 presidential win.

The pair lost part of their savings in the Ponzi scheme of infamous swindler Bernie Madoff.

Bacon and Sedgwick learned in 2011, via their appearance on the PBS TV series 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 Association Year Category Title Result Awards Circuit Community Awards 1995 Best Cast Ensemble Apollo 13 2003 Best Cast Ensemble Mystic River Blockbuster Entertainment Awards 2001 Favorite Actor – Science Fiction Hollow Man Boston Society of Film Critics Awards 2003 Best Ensemble Cast Mystic River Bravo Otto Awards 1984 Best Actor Footloose CableACE Awards 1997 Directing a Movie or Miniseries Losing Chase Chlotrudis Awards 2005 Best Actor The Woodsman Critics' Choice Movie Awards 1996 Best Actor Murder in the First Ghent International Film Festival 2004 Special Mention The Woodsman Giffoni Film Festival 1997 Best Actor Digging to China Gold Derby Awards 2004 Ensemble Cast Mystic River Golden Globe Awards 1995 Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture The River Wild 2010 Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Taking Chance 2018 Best Actor in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical I Love Dick Independent Spirit Awards 2005 Best Male Lead The Woodsman Italian Online Movie Awards 2004 Best Supporting Actor Mystic River MTV Movie + TV Awards 2001 Best Villain Hollow Man Online Film & Television Association Awards 2009 Best Actor in a Motion Picture or Miniseries Taking Chance 2015 Best Actor in a Drama Series The Following People's Choice Awards 2014 Favorite Dramatic Television Actor The Following 2015 Favorite Crime Drama Television Actor The Following Primetime Emmy Awards 2009 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie Taking Chance Satellite Awards 2005 Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama The Woodsman 2009 Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Taking Chance Saturn Awards 2013 Best Actor on Television The Following 2014 Best Actor on Television The Following Scream Awards 2011 Best Villain X-Men: First Class Screen Actors Guild Awards 1996 Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role Murder in the First 1996 Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Apollo 13 2004 Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Mystic River 2009 Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Frost/Nixon 2010 Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries Taking Chance Teen Choice Awards 2005 Choice Movie – Sleazbag Beauty Shop 2011 Choice Movie – Villain X-Men: First Class TV Guide Awards 2013 Favorite Actor The Following

Other honors

2003, September 30: Inducted into Hollywood Walk of Fame 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.