In 2003, Bacon received a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame.[4] 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 operatorEE and has been featured in advertisements for the company.[5] Bacon is married to actressKyra Sedgwick.
Early life and education
Bacon was born and raised in a close-knit family inPhiladelphia.[2] 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,[2] while his father,Edmund Bacon (1910–2005), was anurban planner who served as executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and authored the seminal textDesign of Cities.[6]
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Early work
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 Mills ofCosmopolitan. "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."[10]Bacon's debut in thefraternity comedyNational 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.[6] He briefly worked on the television soap operasSearch for Tomorrow (1979) andGuiding Light (1980–81) in New York.
Bolstered by the attention garnered by his performance inDiner, Bacon starred inFootloose (1984).[12] Richard Corliss ofTIME likenedFootloose to theJames Dean classicRebel Without a Cause and the oldMickey Rooney/Judy Garland musicals, commenting that the film includes "motifs on book burning, mid-life crisis, AWOL parents, fatal car crashes, drug enforcement, and Bible Belt vigilantism."[15] 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.[6][16] Bacon earned strong reviews forFootloose.[17]Bacon's critical and box office success led to a period oftypecasting in roles similar to the two he portrayed inDiner andFootloose, 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.
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,[20] and he portrayed an earnest medical student experimenting with death inJoel Schumacher'sFlatliners.[12]
In Bacon's next project he starred oppositeElizabeth Perkins inHe 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.[12]
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 Times writer Trip Gabriel. "You can't afford to set up a $40 million movie if you don't have your star."[21] He performed that year as gay prostitute Willie O'Keefe inOliver Stone'sJFK[22] and went on to play a prosecuting attorney in the military courtroom dramaA Few Good Men.[23] Later that year he returned to the theater to play inSpike Heels, directed byMichael Greif.[12]
In 1994, Bacon earned aGolden Globe nomination for his role inThe River Wild,[12] oppositeMeryl Streep. He described the film to Chase inCosmopolitan 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,[12] the same year that he starred in theblockbuster hitApollo 13.[24] Bacon played a trademark dark role once again inSleepers (1996).[25] This part starkly contrasted with his appearance in the lighthearted romantic comedy,Picture Perfect (1997).[12]
Bacon made his debut as a director with the television filmLosing Chase (1996), which was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, and won one.[26] Bacon again resurrected his oddball mystique that year as a mentally-challenged houseguest inDigging to China[12] and as a disc jockey corrupted bypayola inTelling Lies in America.[12] 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.[27]
In 2000, he appeared inPaul Verhoeven'sHollow Man.[28] Bacon,Colin Firth andRachel Blanchard depict aménage à trois in their film,Where the Truth Lies.[29] Bacon and directorAtom Egoyan condemned theMPAA 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."[30] That same year, he played the gruff father in the family filmMy Dog Skip.[31]
In 2003, Bacon acted withSean Penn andTim Robbins inClint 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.[32]
Beginning in 2012, Bacon has appeared in a major advertising campaign forEE in the United Kingdom, based on the Six Degrees concept and his various film roles.[45][46] In 2015, he became a commercial spokesperson for the U.S. egg industry.[47]
Bacon is the subject of thetrivia game titled "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", based on the idea that, due to his prolificscreen 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 ofsix degrees of separation. Initially, Bacon was dismayed by the game but thememe stuck; eventually, he embraced it, forming the charitable initiativeSixDegrees.org, asocial networking service intended to link people and charities to each other.[48]
The measure of proximity to Bacon has been mathematically formalized as theBacon number and can be referenced at websites including Oracle of Bacon, which is in turn based upon Wikipedia data (and formerly fromInternet 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.[49] 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 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 theErdős number to form theErdős–Bacon number, which is the sum of the two.[50]
Personal life
Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon during The Best You Can premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival
Bacon has been married to actressKyra Sedgwick since September 4, 1988; they met on the set of thePBS version 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."[10] Bacon and Sedgwick have starred together inPyrates,Murder in the First,The Woodsman, andLoverboy. They have two children, a son (born 1989) and a daughter,Sosie Ruth (born 1992). They reside on theUpper West Side ofManhattan.[51] Bacon was previously in a five-year relationship with actressTracy Pollan, in the 1980s.[52]
Bacon and Sedgwick learned in 2011, via their appearance on the PBS TV seriesFinding Your Roots withHenry Louis Gates, that they are ninth cousins, once removed.[59] They also appeared in a video[60] promoting the "Bill of Reproductive Rights", supporting among other things a woman's right to choose and have access to birth control.[61]
2003, September 30: Inducted intoHollywood Walk of Fame with a star for his contribution to Motion Picture presented to him by the Chamber of Commerce.[66]
^Bruce Kirkland (September 14, 2005)."Kevin Bacon irked over movie rating".Toronto Sun. Archived from the original on June 4, 2012. RetrievedJuly 19, 2011.
^"I think there is a puritanical wind that is blowing. I have never seen such a lack of separation between church and state in America. I don't believe in God, but if I did I would say that sex is a God-given right." Wendy Ide, "The Outsider Wants In",The Times (London), December 1, 2005.
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