NAME: Kevin Norwood Bacon
AGE: 55 (born 8 July 1958)
ABOUT: Is an American actor whose prolific film career has spanned over 36 year and included more than 70 film roles!
Bacon was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
One of six children, his mother Ruth was an elementary school teacher, whilst his Father Edmund was an architect and for many years was the Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. One of six children, it was at the age of 16, when the young Mr Bacon won a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts at Bucknell University (five-week arts program at which he studied theatre under Dr Glory Van Scott) that drove and fueled his passion for the arts and acting in particular.
At the tender age of 17, he headed off to New York, set on a career in acting – in the theatre. His debut on the big screen came in the comedy National Lampoon's Animal House, way back in 1978 however this wasn’t really his big break, as he ended up waiting tables again, while going to every audition possible, and heading back to the theatre. He did, in the late 70’s and early 80’s have some small roles in American daytime soaps, including Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light. Bacon was however back on cinema screens in 1980, with a role in the slasher hit Friday the 13th.
Bacon continued his career on the stage, and in 1982, he starred with two other then unknowns, Val Kilmer and Sean Penn on Broadway in the John Byrne play ‘The Slab Boys’.
It was in the same year however, that Bacon finally got a credible break and was ‘noticed’, starring in Diner, from that point on he landed better and better roles, and of course in 1984 he starred in Footloose that iconic 1980’s movie, about a town where music and dancing have been banned, the final dance scene is how many will forever see Kevin Bacon, and his very recent re-enacting of it, on an American talk show proved that despite the passage of time Bacon hasn’t lost any of the snake hips or moves!!
Following Diner and Footloose, Kevin Bacon has rarely been off the big screen, and it is credit to his talent and versatility that he has appeared in an amazing diverse range of films. He is very often not a leading man, and that is quite possibly also one of the reasons for his far reaching and successful career – that he is happy to play the supporting role, and very often then ends up outshining the leading man. Of course, we had to include a filmography (very basic – only films no roles)!
1978 National Lampoon's Animal House
1979 Starting Over
1979 The Gift
1980 Hero at Large
1980 Friday the 13th
1981 Only When I Laugh
1982 Diner
1982 Forty Deuce
1983 The Demon Murder Case (TV movie)
1983 Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
1984 Footloose
1984 Mister Roberts Ens. (TV movie)
1985 The Little Sister
1986 Quicksilver
1987 White Water Summer
1987 End of the Line
1987 Planes, Trains and Automobiles
1988 She's Having a Baby
1989 Criminal Law
1989 The Big Picture
1990 Tremors
1990 Flatliners
1991 Pyrates
1991 Queens Logic
1991 He Said, She Said
1991 JFK
1991 A Little Vicious (narrator – short)
1992 A Few Good Men
1994 The Air Up There
1994 The River Wild
1994 New York Skyride (short)
1995 Murder in the First
1995 Apollo 13
1995 Balto Balto
1996 Sleepers
1997 Picture Perfect
1997 Destination Anywhere
1997 Telling Lies in America
1998 Digging to China
1998 Wild Things
1999 Stir of Echoes
2000 My Dog Skip
2000 We Married Margo
2000 Hollow Man
2001 Novocaine
2002 Trapped
2003 Mystic River
2003 In the Cut
2003 Imagine New York
2004 The Woodsman
2004 Cavedweller
2004 Natural Disasters: Forces of Nature (short)
2005 Loverboy (Bacon also directed)
2005 Beauty Shop
2005 Where the Truth Lies
2007 Death Sentence
2007 Rails & Ties
2007 Saving Angela (short)
2008 The Air I Breathe
2008 Frost/Nixon
2009 The Magic 7
2009 My One and Only
2009 Taking Chance (TV movie)
2011 Elephant White
2011 Super
2011 X-Men: First Class
2011 Crazy, Stupid, Love.
2012 Jayne Mansfield's Car
2013 R.I.P.D.
2013 Skum Rocks!
Testament to his prolific and varied film career is the fact that Kevin Bacon has his very own tr
ivia game – Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon – the game is based on the idea that any Hollywood actor can be, within six steps, linked to back to Bacon! The ‘Bacon Index’ has been mathematically formulated and is based upon the Internet Movie Database. In fact, such is the popularity of the game that if you type into Google the name of any actor followed with the words ‘Bacon Number’ the search engine will tell you the Bacon number, and list the connections (i.e. Harvey Keitel's Bacon number is 2- Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro appeared in Mean Streets – Robert De Niro and Kevin Bacon appeared in Sleepers). Bacon himself was not amused initially however eventually he accepted the inevitable, and actually formed a charity called SixDegree.org, which is a charitable social networking site which links people and charities.
Most recently in the UK, we have seen Mr Bacon in a series of rather awful and ill-conceived adverts for the mobile network EE, I think we can forgive him for succumbing to a PR man’s bad ideas – since he has also made a fair few good decisions in his career, one of which is definitely his latest foray, into a US big money TV series – The Following, in which he stars as an FBI agent intent to catching an escaped serial killer – the series has been met with almost universal approval, despite the violent graphic storylines , and it has just been announced that a third series is going to be made.
Finally, Bacon’s other notable, and perhaps for him most notable achievement is his long and successful marriage, and seemingly perfect family life, Kevin has been married to actress Kyra Sedgewick for 23 years, and they have two children, actress Sosie and musician Travis – who all appear to be happy, and unusually for Hollywood totally un-estranged!
What Makes Him Razberry Candy: A long and successful career and marriage! Sounds almost too good to be true! Plus the man can dance!
