Kevin Bacon
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
In January 2000, Bacon was the initial recipient of Film Society of Lincoln Center annual Young Friends of Film Honors.
An example of how "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" works: Denis Leary was in "Judgment Night" with Emilio Estevez, who was in "The Breakfast Club" with Judd Nelson, who was in "New Jack City" with Ice-T, who worked with John Lithgow in "Ricochet", who was in "Footloose" with ... Kevin Bacon! (This gives Leary a "Bacon number" of five.) Versions of the game are available online.
Biography
Thanks to the sudden celebrity born from his electrifying performance in "Footloose" (1984), actor Kevin Bacon was transformed from a virtual unknown into an unlikely heartthrob who graced the covers of magazines like Teen Beat, something he struggled in vain to live down for the rest of his career. Though he subsequently delivered strong performances in "JFK" (1991), "A Few Good Men" (1992), "The Woodsman" (2004), "Crazy, Stupid, Love" (2011) and "Black Mass" (2015), Bacon was hounded by "Footloose" fans who recognized nothing else of his career beyond that iconic performance. Always gracious despite the desire to move on -- he often joked that he bribed DJs at clubs and parties to not play the Kenny Loggins song -- the actor had on occasion obliged calls to recreate the famous warehouse dance scene, despite ever-present reservations. He was even more of a good sport with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, a parlor game created by three college students in 1994, which claimed that any actor in the history of filmmaking could be connected to him in six links or less. Regardless of the strange trappings of his particular celebrity, Bacon remained a versatile actor capable of turning in exquisite performances in either leading or supporting roles, and he found a late-career renaissance as the lead in procedural thriller "The Following" (Fox 2013-15).
Born on July 8, 1958 in Philadelphia, PA, Bacon was raised the youngest of six children by his father, Edmund, an urban planner who reinvented the city and was once dubbed "The Father of Modern Philadelphia," and his mother, Ruth, a teacher and political activist. Bacon knew all along that he wanted to be an actor, which led him to attend the Pennsylvania Governors School for the Arts. After continuing his dramatic training at the Manning Street Actor's Theatre in Philadelphia, he left for New York, where he became the youngest-ever apprentice at the Greenwich Village theater school, Circle in the Square. While there, he made his off-Broadway premiere in Marsha Norman's "Getting Out" (1978). He followed with his feature debut with a small, but memorable part in "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978). In two long-revered scenes, Bacon portrayed Chip Diller, a young ROTC soldier pledging the Omega Theta Pi fraternity, who receives a severe paddling during rush week while intoning, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" At the end of the movie, he pleaded for a frenzied parade crowd to "Remain calm all is well!" before getting trampled into the cement cartoon fashion.
Bacon moved on to several small supporting roles, making his television movie debut in the Christmas drama, "The Gift" (CBS, 1979) while appearing in features like "Starting Over" (1979), "Friday the 13th" (1980) and "Only When I Laugh" (1981). He gained his first serious exposure as a confused rich kid with a drinking problem in "Diner" (1982), Barry Levinson's directorial debut that also introduced the likes of Steve Guttenberg, Paul Riser and Mickey Rourke He elevated his career with an OBIE-winning performance on Broadway opposite Sean Penn in "The Slab Boys" (1983). But all was mere prologue to the insane amount of celebrity Bacon received for his performance in the smash hit "Footloose" (1984), an improbably popular riff on "Flashdance" (1983) that forever changed the actor's career. As the rebellious Ren McCormack, who moves from the big city to a small town where the local government has banned rock music and dancing, Bacon - who had up that point considered himself a serious dramatic actor - became an unlikely heartthrob, appearing on covers of all the teen magazines, including Tiger Beat, as well as more adult entertainment publications like People. Along with the hit title song by Kenny Loggins - which accompanied Bacon's famed warehouse dance scene - "Footloose" became one of the iconic cultural symbols of the 1980s.
Though he became an instant celebrity because of "Footloose," Bacon soon learned that his fame came with a price - namely that he would spend the rest of his natural born life being associated with the role no matter what else he did on screen. The other downside was the idea entering his mind that he was somehow invincible. But headlining mediocre fare like "Quicksilver" (1986) and "White Water Summer" (1987) dimmed his star considerably, offering the actor a large helping of humble pie. Even a pairing with director John Hughes as an overwrought yuppie dad in the contemporary comedy "She's Having a Baby" (1988) failed to set the box office on fire. By the time Bacon played a cold-blooded killer in the pretentious "Criminal Law" (1988) and a young filmmaker in the underrated satire "The Big Picture" (1989), his career was in serious jeopardy. Meanwhile, his personal life took a turn with the death of his mother and the sudden sense of responsibility brought on by the birth of his first child with actress Kyra Sedgwick.
After beginning the next decade with the uninspired "Flatliners" (1990) and the ridiculous, but fun horror flick "Tremors" (1990) - which spawned numerous sequels and incarnations - Bacon tried in vain to revitalize his waning career with the failed throwback romantic comedy, "He Said, She Said" (1991). But it was his next performance - a small supporting one at that - in Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1991) that began righting the course of his career. Bacon played the fictional Willie O'Keefe, a fascist-minded gay hustler associated with alleged conspirators David Ferrie (J Pesci), Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), and the only man officially accused of pulling the trigger, Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman), in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Though only onscreen for several minutes, including a memorable scene with New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) at a Louisiana prison, Bacon made an indelible impression on critics and movieg rs, who saw a completely different side of the actor. Soon he began to take on darker, more challenging roles like the serious dramatic actor he knew himself to be.
One such role was a compelling performance as a rock solid, no-nonsense Marine prosecutor trying a hazing ritual gone bad in Rob Reiner's feature adaptation of Aaron Sorkin's play, "A Few Good Men" (1992). He next played an American basketball coach who brings the game to an African tribe in "The Air Up There" (1994), a role that reinforced the fact that his name alone was not enough to carry a picture. But he returned to the winner's column playing a fugitive killer menacing Meryl Streep and her family in "The River Wild" (1994), which earned Bacon his first-ever Golden Globe nomination. While Christian Slater was top-billed for the historical courtroom drama "Murder in the First" (1995), Bacon delivered a strong performance as a Depression-era inmate at Alcatraz who suffers severe abuse, transforming him from a petty thief into a murderer. Many were disappointed with Bacon being shut out of award nominations for a role that was one of the best of his career. Also that year, he was appropriately cocky as astronaut Jack Swigert, who gets trapped aboard the doomed "Apollo 13" (1995) with Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton).
Bacon made his directorial debut with the character drama "Losing Chase" (1996), starring wife Kyra Sedgwick, which got a theatrical release after its premiere on Showtime. If any traces of his teen idol image were still visible after "JFK," they were completely erased with his next project, "Sleepers" (1996), in which he played a guard at a 1960s reform school who - along with his fellow guards - systematically rape and beat four boys. Years later, the boys have grown into men and by chance find their chief tormentor, murdering him in broad daylight. Meanwhile, he earned his first song credit writing "Medium Rare" for "Telling Lies in America" (1997), in which he also starred as a brash disc jockey accepting payola. Bacon next picked up his first credit as executive producer with "Wild Things" (1998), a neo-noir that saw him play a police sergeant who becomes suspicious after a high school guidance counselor is accused of rape by two students, one Goth (Neve Campbell), the other rich and popular (Denise Richards), only to be acquitted when one of the girls admits she falsified her story, leading to a multi-million dollar settlement.
By this time in his career, Bacon had worked on a number of films that made it seem as though he had worked with everyone in show business. In fact, while conducting an interview with Premiere magazine, Bacon made a comment claiming that he had worked with everyone in Hollywood or someone who has worked with that person. The claim led to a game created by three Albright College students called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which required players to connect him to any other actor in film history as quickly and with as few links as possible. The number of links would be the actor's Bacon number. For example, Tom Cruise worked with Kevin Bacon in "A Few Good Men," which meant that he had a Bacon number of one - the lowest possible. By the end of the decade, the game had become infused into popular culture, while a good-humored Bacon often played into the joke, even making mention of it in a cameo appearance as himself on an episode of "Will & Grace" (NBC, 1998-2006).
Bacon pursued other avenues of creative expression when he joined older brother Michael to form the aptly-named band, The Bacon Brothers, a country-rock outfit that formed in 1995 and released its debut album, Forosoco, two years later. Continuing his music trip, Bacon sang on the television special "Happy Birthday Elizabeth - A Celebration of Life" (ABC, 1997), which honored the life and career of Elizabeth Taylor, who herself possessed a Bacon number of two. He then shared credit for the music on the European feature "Solo Shuttle" (1998) and released a second Bacon Brothers album, Getting There (1999), which led to the band playing their first major concert at the venerable Town Hall in New York City in 2000. Of course, Bacon was full steam ahead with his film career, giving an exceptional performance as a working-class Everyman who takes a dangerously long time to comprehend his newly acquired psychic powers in David K pp's supernatural thriller "Stir of Ech s" (1999). Released in the shadow of the blockbuster thriller, "The Sixth Sense" (1999), which featured a similar plot line, the unappreciated film languished at the box office.
Bacon remained in the background as a gruff father in "My Dog Skip" (2000), allowing young Frankie Muniz to dominate the nostalgic tale of growing up in the Deep South of the 1940s. Later that year, he headlined Paul Verh ven's sci-fi thriller, "The Hollow Man" (2000), playing as a U.S. government scientist whose experiments on a secretive invisibility serum backfires, causing him to fade away and turn homicidal. It was a perfect part for Bacon, who provided the picture with a necessary edge amidst special effects and a big name director. Bacon next joined Courtney Love to portray a pair of professional kidnappers in Luis Mandoki's middling action feature "Trapped" (2002), costarring Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend. Bacon delivered one of his best turns to date when he appeared in director Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" (2003), playing a homicide detective assigned to the murder of the daughter of a childhood friend (Sean Penn), while another friend from the neighborhood (Tim Robbins) is suspected of the crime.
He followed with an even more challenging role in "The Woodsman" (2004), playing a convicted pedophile who returns to his hometown to begin a new life after a dozen years in prison. Bacon's realistic and even sympathetic depiction was praised as one of his finest performances. But the controversial subject matter may have cost the actor some major award nominations. Still, he did earn an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead. Radically shifting gears, he enjoyed a scene-stealing supporting turn as an over-the-top hair stylist in the "Barbershop" spin-off "Beauty Shop" (2005). Scoring another coup, Bacon costarred with Colin Firth in director Atom Egoyan's sly and seductive show biz noir, "Where the Truth Lies" (2005). Bacon played Lanny Morris, the manic half of a 1950s comedy duo caught up in the mysterious murder of a beautiful blonde who turns up naked and dead in the bathtub of their New Jersey hotel room, leading to the dissolution of their partnership and a years-later investigation.
Bacon sat back down in the director's chair for "Loverboy" (2006), a heartfelt drama about an iconoclastic woman (Sedgwick) who wants nothing more than to have a child. Meanwhile, he formed the charitable group, sixdegrees.org, which helped raise money for various causes through its partnership with companies like AOL and Entertainment Weekly. Back on screen, he played a doctor compromised by personal feelings while trying to save the life of someone he loves in the ensemble drama, "The Air I Breathe" (2008). In "Frost/Nixon" (2008), he portrayed John Brennan, a former Marine officer and the post-resignation chief of staff for disgraced president Richard Nixon (Frank Langella), who agreed to do a series of historic interviews with British broadcaster David Frost (Michael Sheen). Bacon delivered another exquisite performance, this time as a U.S. Marine who volunteers to bring back the remains of a 19-year-old soldier killed in Iraq in the real-life inspired drama, "Taking Chance" (HBO, 2009). The role earned him nominations for an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award and he won both. He next had a supporting role as a philandering band leader in "My One and Only" (2009), a comedic look at the early years of actor George Hamilton (Logan Lerman), and in James Gunn's superhero parody "Super" (2010). After co-starring in the romantic comedy "Crazy, Stupid, Love" (2011) and blockbuster "X-Men: First Class" (2011), Bacon co-starred in Billy Bob Thornton's indie "Jayne Mansfield's Car" (2012) and appeared in the action comedy flop "R.I.P.D." (2013) before turning to television as the star of "The Following" (Fox 2013-15). A well-received procedural starring Bacon as an investigator on the trail of a serial killer whose fans have begun committing copycat crimes, the series ran for two seasons. Bacon returned to the big screen starring in the thriller "Cop Car" (2015) and appearing in a supporting role in "Black Mass" (2015), the story of Boston mobster turned FBI informant Whitey Bulger.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Music (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Music (Special)
Life Events
1978
Off-Broadway debut, "Getting Out" by Marsha Norman
1978
Made film acting debut in "National Lampoon's Animal House"
1979
Landed regular role of Todd Adamson on CBS daytime soap "Search for Tomorrow" (CBS)
1979
TV-movie debut, "The Gift" (CBS)
1980
Appeared off-Broadway in "Album," directed by Joan Micklin Silver
1980
Appeared as cast regular Tim Werner on daytime drama "The Guiding Light" (CBS)
1982
Gained attention as the confused rich kid with a drinking problem in Barry Levinson's feature directorial debut "Diner"
1982
Reprised off-Broadway role of Ricky in film version of Alan Bowne's play "Forty Deuce"
1983
Made Broadway debut opposite Sean Penn in "The Slab Boys"
1984
Cast in breakout film role as Ren McCormick, a city boy who inspires a small town to dance in "Footloose"
1988
Appeared opposite future wife Kyra Sedwick in PBS production of "Lemon Sky"
1988
Starred as overly expectant yuppie father in John Hughes' "She's Having a Baby"
1989
First of three films with Gary Oldman, "Criminal Law"
1989
Portrayed a student filmmaker swallowed into the System in "The Big Picture"
1990
Played the voice of reason for fellow medical students taking part in a dangerous life-after-death experiment in "Flatliners"
1990
Starred as Valentine McKee in cult horror comedy "Tremors"
1991
First feature with wife Kyra Sedgwick, "Pyrates"
1991
Cast as a journalist opposite Elizabeth Perkins in romantic feature "He Said, She Said"
1992
Acted the part of a no-nonsense Marine attorney in Rob Reiner's "A Few Good Men"
1994
Menaced Meryl Streep and family in "The River Wild"
1995
Delivered bravura performance as an Alcatraz prisoner who murdered a fellow inmate under extenuating circumstances in Marc Rocco's "Murder in the First"; third film with Oldman, who played his sadistic associate warden
1995
Formed music group with brother Michael called The Bacon Brothers
1995
Portrayed astronaut Jack Swigart in Ron Howard's "Apollo 13"
1996
Directorial debut, "Losing Chase"; premiered on Showtime before receiving a theatrical release; Sedgwick executive produced as well as starred opposite Helen Mirren
1996
Reteamed with director Levinson for "Sleepers," playing an abusive guard in a boys' reformatory
1997
First song credit ("Medium Rare") in "Telling Lies in America"; also co-starred as a disc jockey
1997
Performed a song in ABC special "Happy Birthday Elizabeth - A Celebration of Life" honoring Elizabeth Taylor
1998
First credit as executive producer, "Wild Things"; also co-starred with Matt Dillon and Neve Campbell
1999
Lifetime's "Weddings of a Lifetime" included a musical performance from The Bacon Brothers
2000
The Bacon Brothers played first major NYC concert at the venerable Town Hall
2000
Played the father of Willie Morris (Frankie Muniz) in "My Dog Skip"
2000
Played title role in Paul Verhoeven's "Hollow Man"
2001
Cast in featured role in "Novocaine," starring Steve Martin and Helena Bonham Carter
2002
Portrayed a kidnapper in "Trapped"
2003
Co-starred with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins in Clint Eastwood directed "Mystic River"
2004
Portrayed a pedophile who returns to his hometown after 12 years in prison and attempts to start a new life in "The Woodsman"; film premiered at Sundance; received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead
2005
Co-starred with Colin Firth as a showbiz duo whose career was ended abruptly amid scandal in Atom Egoyan's "Where the Truth Lies"
2005
Directed and co-starred in "Loverboy," about an unsound mother who surrounds her only son with a magical world for two; premiered at Sundance
2005
Played a rival hair stylist opposite Queen Latifah in comedy "Beauty Shop"
2007
Played a father out to avenge a gang's attack on his family in thriller "Death Sentence"
2007
Co-starred in Alison Eastwood's directorial debut "Rails and Ties"
2008
Co-starred in drama "The Air I Breathe"
2008
Portrayed Jack Brennan, Richard Nixon's post-presidential Chief of Staff in Peter Morgan's feature adaption of "Frost/Nixon"
2009
Portrayed 'Desert Storm' war veteran Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strob in HBO Film "Taking Chance"; earned Emmy nomination for Best Actor in a Television Movie
2011
Portrayed Sebastian Shaw in prequel to "X-Men" film series "X-Men: First Class"
2012
Starred as a former FBI agent tracking down an escaped serial killer in Kevin Williamson's crime drama "The Following" (Fox)
2016
Appeared in the horror film "The Darkness"
2016
Starred as the title character on short-lived Amazon comedy "I Love Dick"
2018
Appeared in a TV-movie reboot of his '90s horror comedy flick "Tremors"
Photo Collections
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
In January 2000, Bacon was the initial recipient of Film Society of Lincoln Center annual Young Friends of Film Honors.
An example of how "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" works: Denis Leary was in "Judgment Night" with Emilio Estevez, who was in "The Breakfast Club" with Judd Nelson, who was in "New Jack City" with Ice-T, who worked with John Lithgow in "Ricochet", who was in "Footloose" with ... Kevin Bacon! (This gives Leary a "Bacon number" of five.) Versions of the game are available online.
The Bacon Brothers' website is located at http://www.baconbros.com.
"I've come to understand that all this [audience and critical approval] plays a more important role than I was willing to accept. I had a lot of years when I was in total denial about it. I'd say, 'I don't care about the press. All I want to do is do my work.' I realize it IS important to me, the way a movie is received and the way people perceive me, and all those little things I'm saying are nightmarish. They're really important to me, too."---Kevin Bacon in The New York Times, September 25, 1994.
"I was tired of making movies nobody was seeing. It was hurting my feelings. It was hurting my career. So I started looking for things that people will see."---Bacon to USA Today, January 20, 1995.
"I learned that I'll never do it again in 20 days. I like to be able to stop and think about each scene because the littlest things end up being incredibly important. But I did learn a lot; I learned about editing, I learned about coverage, I learned a tremendous amount about directing actors. You'd think that would be the thing I'd know the best, but I certainly learned from that experience.Of all the aspects of filmmaking, post was the total mystery for me. When they showed me the first cut, I was just kind of wiped out by it. I felt like, 'Okay, well there it is, but I don't have a clue how to fix this,' and the editors said, 'Well, let's start with the first scene.' We went into the first scene and I went, 'Okay, I get it.' And then I ended up really loving it as a process, because that's your final rewrite. It's a cliche, but it's the truth.'" --Bacon on what he learned from his first directing experience, quoted in DGA Magazine, March-April 1996.
"I wanted to be a serious actor, but when 'Footloose' took off, there was this opportunity to really work it and use that success. A lot of other people were able to really cash in on it. And although they became pop stars eventually they were recognized as very good actors. But I was so resistant to the whole thing that I sort of sabotaged my own career. Because it didn't feel right to me to cash in on that kind of success.I don't mean to hold that up as somehow heroic of me. It was really fear. I was really just terrified of being in L.A., afraid of finding my way around in a car, finding an apartment, making friends, meeting girls. But being so far away from Hollywood that early hurt me career-wise."---Bacon to Denis Hamill in Daily News, September 5, 1999.
"I believe you need a little bit of danger and butterflies in your creative life.Not that I don't love making movies, but they don't give me butterflies anymore except maybe opening weekends. It's pretty nice to be up there on stage (playing music) and to get that sense of 'anything can happen.' And hand-in-hand with that goes the adrenaline rush."--Bacon on his passion for performing with his band to Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1999.
"The casting director came to my acting school and said they were looking for some kids to be in this movie, so I went and had this whirlwind experience. Afterwards, I came back to New York and was waiting on tables again. I had to ask for the night off to go to the premiere."---Bacon on making his feature debut in "Animal House" to Empire, June 2000.
"Being in front of an audience is an essential part of the creative performer's life. Movies don't give me butterflies. They don't put me on the edge. You have to have some kind of danger."---Kevin Bacon quoted in The New York Times, February 3, 2002.
"I was living on my sister's couch and I couldn't get an agent, couldn't get anyone to open their doors for me. I wanted to work so badly, and it seemed like every time I managed to get a job, it didn't lead to the next one. Okay, times have changed since then, but I still remember those days so clearly. It's like I just got here..."---Bacon quoted to Biography, September 2002.
