Kevin Bacon Bacon at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con Born July 8, 1958 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. Occupation Actor, musician Years active 1978–present Spouse(s) Kyra Sedgwick (m. 1988) Children Travis Bacon Sosie Bacon Website www.baconbros.com (http://www.baconbros.com/) Kevin Bacon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see Kevin Bacon (disambiguation). Kevin Norwood Bacon [1] (born July 8, 1958) is an American actor and musician whose notable roles include National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), Diner (1982), Footloose (1984), Flatliners (1990), Tremors (1990), Wild Things (1998), JFK (1991), A Few Good Men (1992), The River Wild (1994), Murder in the First (1995), Apollo 13 (1995), Stir of Echoes (1999), Hollow Man (2000), Trapped (2002), Mystic River (2003), The Woodsman (2004), Death Sentence (2007), Frost/Nixon (2008), and X-Men: First Class (2011). He currently stars on the Fox television series The Following. Bacon has won a Golden Globe Award, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. He was named by The Guardian as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. [2] In 2003, Bacon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Contents 1 Early life 2 Acting career 2.1 Advertising work 3 Personal life 4 Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon 5 Music 6 Filmography 7 Awards and nominations 8 References 9 External links Early life
Transcript
Kevin Bacon
Bacon at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con
Born July 8, 1958
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation Actor, musician
Years active 1978–present
Spouse(s) Kyra Sedgwick (m. 1988)
Children Travis Bacon
Sosie Bacon
Website
www.baconbros.com (http://www.baconbros.com/)
Kevin BaconFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Kevin Bacon (disambiguation).
Kevin Norwood Bacon[1]
(born July 8, 1958) is an
American actor and musician whose notable roles include
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Friday the
(1990), Tremors (1990), Wild Things (1998), JFK (1991),
A Few Good Men (1992), The River Wild (1994), Murder
in the First (1995), Apollo 13 (1995), Stir of Echoes
(1999), Hollow Man (2000), Trapped (2002), Mystic River
(2003), The Woodsman (2004), Death Sentence (2007),
Frost/Nixon (2008), and X-Men: First Class (2011). He
currently stars on the Fox television series The Following.
Bacon has won a Golden Globe Award, three Screen
Actors Guild Awards, and was nominated for a Primetime
Emmy Award. He was named by The Guardian as one of
the best actors never to have received an Academy Award
nomination.[2]
In 2003, Bacon received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Acting career
2.1 Advertising work
3 Personal life
4 Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
5 Music
6 Filmography
7 Awards and nominations
8 References
9 External links
Early life
Bacon in January 2007
Bacon, one of six children, was born and raised in a close-knit family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[3] Hismother, Ruth Hilda (née Holmes; 1916–1991), taught at an elementary school and was a liberal activist, whilehis father, Edmund Norwood Bacon (May 2, 1910 – October 14, 2005), was a well-respected architect and aprominent Philadelphian who had been Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission formany years. At 16, in 1975, Bacon won a full scholarship to and attended the Pennsylvania Governor'sSchool for the Arts at Bucknell University,[4] a state-funded five-week arts program at which he studiedtheatre under Dr. Glory Van Scott. The experience solidified Bacon's passion for the arts.
Acting careerBacon left home at age 17 to pursue a theater career in New York, where he appeared in a production at theCircle in the Square Theater School. "I wanted life, man, the real thing", he later recalled to Nancy Mills ofCosmopolitan. "The message I got was 'The arts are it. Business is the devil's work. Art and creativeexpression are next to godliness.' Combine that with an immense ego and you wind up with an actor."[5]
Bacon's debut in the fraternity comedy National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978 did not lead to the famefor which he had hoped, and Bacon returned to waiting tables and auditioning for small roles in theater. Hebriefly worked on the television soap operas Search for Tomorrow (1979) and Guiding Light (1980–81) inNew York. In 1980, he had a prominent role in the now iconic slasher film Friday the 13th. He refused anoffer of a television series based on Animal House to be filmed in California in order to remain close to theNew York stage . Some of his early stage work included Getting Out performed at New York's PhoenixTheater, and Flux which he did at Second Stage Theatre during their 1981–1982 season.
In 1982, he won an Obie Award for his role in Forty Deuce, and soon after made his Broadway debut in SlabBoys, with then-unknowns Sean Penn and Val Kilmer. However, it was not until he portrayed TimothyFenwick that same year in Barry Levinson's Diner – costarring Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, MickeyRourke, Tim Daly and Ellen Barkin – that he made an indelible impression on film critics and moviegoersalike.
Bolstered by the attention garnered by his performance in Diner,Bacon starred in the 1984 box-office smash Footloose. RichardCorliss of TIME likened Footloose to the James Dean classic RebelWithout a Cause and the old Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musicals,commenting that the film includes "motifs on book burning, mid-lifecrisis, AWOL parents, fatal car crashes, drug enforcement, and BibleBelt vigilantism."[6] To prepare for the role, Bacon enrolled at a highschool as a transfer student named "Ren McCormick" and studiedteenagers before leaving in the middle of the day. Bacon did earnstrong reviews for Footloose,[7] and he appeared on the cover ofPeople magazine soon after its release. Bacon's critical and box officesuccess lead to a period of typecasting in roles similar to the two heportrayed in Diner and Footloose. Bacon would have difficultyshaking this on-screen image. For the next several years he chosefilms that cast him against either type and experienced, by his ownestimation, a career slump. In 1988, he starred in John Hughes'comedy She's Having a Baby and the following year he was in
another comedy called The Big Picture. In 1990, Bacon had two successful roles. He played a character who
Bacon receiving a Merit Award inApril 2010
Bacon speaking before a premiere ofTaking Chance in February 2009
saved his town from under-the-earth "graboid" monsters in the comedy/horror film Tremors – a role thatPeople found him "far too accomplished" to play – and portrayed an earnest medical student experimentingwith death in Joel Schumacher's Flatliners. Bacon's next project was to star opposite Elizabeth Perkins in He
Said, She Said. Despite lukewarm reviews and low audience turnout, He Said, She Said was illuminating forBacon. Required to play a character with sexist attitudes, he admitted that the role was not that large a stretchfor him. By 1991, Bacon began to give up the idea of playing leading men in big-budget films and to remakehimself 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 writer Trip Gabriel."You can't afford to set up a $40 million movie if you don't have your star."[8]
He performed that year as gay prostitute Willie O'Keefe in Oliver Stone's JFK. He went on to play aprosecuting attorney in the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men. Later that year he returned to thetheater to play in Spike Heels, directed by Michael Greif.
In 1994, Bacon earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in The
River Wild opposite Meryl Streep. He described the film to Chase inCosmopolitan as a "grueling shoot," in which "every one of us fellout of the boat at one point or another and had to be saved." His nextfilm, Murder in the First, earned him the Broadcast Film Critic'sAssociation Award in 1995, the same year that he starred in theblockbuster hit Apollo 13. Bacon reverted to his trademark dark roleonce again in Sleepers in 1996. This role was in stark contrast to hisappearance in the lighthearted romantic comedy, Picture Perfect thefollowing year. Bacon also made his debut as a director in 1996 withthe television film Losing Chase, which was nominated for threeGolden Globe Awards, winning one.[9] Bacon again resurrected hisoddball mystique that year as a mentally-challenged houseguest inDigging to China, and as a disc jockey corrupted by payola in Telling
Lies in America. As the executive producer of 1998's Wild Things,Bacon reserved a supporting role for himself, and went on to star inStir of Echoes (directed by David Koepp) in 1999, and in PaulVerhoeven's Hollow Man in 2000.
Bacon, Colin Firth andRachel Blanchard depict aménage à trois in their film, Where the Truth Lies. Bacon and directorAtom Egoyan have condemned the MPAA ratings board decision togive the film their "NC-17" rating over the preferable "R". Bacondecried the decision, commenting: "I don't get it, when I see films(that) are extremely violent, extremely objectionable sometimes interms of the roles that women play, slide by with an R, no problem,because the people happen to have more of their clothes on."[10]
Bacon was again acclaimed for a dark starring role playing anoffending pedophile on parole in the 2004 film The Woodsman; hewas nominated best actor receiving the Independent Spirit Award. Heappeared in the HBO Films production of Taking Chance, a filmbased on a story of the same name 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 aMale Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role. On July 15, 2010, it was confirmed that Baconwould appear in Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class.[11] His character was mutant villain SebastianShaw.[12]
In March 2012, Bacon was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, '8' — a stagedreenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as AttorneyCharles J. Cooper.[13] The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube toraise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights.[14][15]
Advertising work
In 2012, and 2013, Bacon has appeared in a major advertising campaign for the EE mobile network in theUnited Kingdom, based on the Six Degrees concept and his various film roles.
Personal lifeBacon has been married to actress Kyra Sedgwick since September 4, 1988; they met on the set of the PBSversion of Lanford Wilson's play Lemon Sky. He has said "The time I was hitting what I considered to bebottom was also the time I met my wife, our kids were born, good things were happening. And I was able tokeep supporting myself; that always gave me strength."[5] Bacon and Sedgwick have starred together inPyrates, Murder in the First, The Woodsman, and Loverboy. They have two children, Travis Sedgwick (b.1989) and Sosie Ruth (b. 1992). The family resides on the Upper West Side of New York.
Bacon has spoken out for the separation of church and state,[16][17] and told The Times in 2005 that he did not"believe in God."[18] However, he has also said that he is not anti-religion.[19]
Bacon and Sedgwick appeared in will.i.am's video "It's a New Day", which was released following BarackObama's 2008 presidential win. The pair lost most of their savings in the Ponzi scheme of infamous fraudulentinvestor Bernard Madoff.[20][21]
They learned in 2011 via their appearance on the PBS TV show Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gatesthat he and Sedgwick are 9th cousins, once removed.[22] They also appeared in a video[23] promoting the"Bill of Reproductive Rights," supporting among other things a woman's right to choose and access to birthcontrol. As of November 2012, Bacon starred in adverts for the British mobile and Internet service EE.
Six Degrees of Kevin BaconMain article: 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 hisprolific screen career covering a diverse range of genres, any Hollywood actor can be linked to another in ahandful of steps based on their associations with Bacon. The name of the game derives from the idea of six
degrees of separation. Though he was initially dismayed by the game, the meme stuck, and Bacon eventually
embraced it, forming the charitable initiative SixDegrees.org, a social networking site intended to link people
and charities to each other.[24]
The measure of proximity to Bacon has been mathematically formalized as the Bacon Index and can be
referenced at websites including Oracle Of Bacon, which is in turn based upon Internet Movie Database data.
Google even 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.[25]
A similar
measurement exists in the mathematics community where one measures how far one is removed from co-
writing a mathematical paper with the famous 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 Index and the
Erdős number to form the Erdős–Bacon number, which is essentially the sum of the two.[26]
MusicKevin formed a band called The Bacon Brothers with his brother, Michael. The duo have released six albums.
FilmographyMain article: Kevin Bacon filmography
Awards and nominations
Year Association Category Nominatedwork Result
1995 Golden Globe Awards Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture The River
WildNominated
1996 Broadcast Film CriticsAssociation Awards Best Actor Murder in the
FirstWon
1996 Screen Actors GuildAwards
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in aMotion Picture Apollo 13 Won
1996 Screen Actors GuildAwards
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor ina Supporting Role
Murder in the
FirstNominated
2001 MTV Movie Awards Best Villain Hollow Man Nominated
2003 Boston Society of FilmCritics Awards Best Cast Mystic River Won
2004 Screen Actors GuildAwards
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in aMotion Picture Mystic River Nominated
2005 Satellite Awards Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama The
WoodsmanNominated
2005 Teen Choice Awards Choice Movie Sleazebag Beauty Shop Nominated
2009 Primetime EmmyAwards
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or aMovie
Taking
ChanceNominated
2009 Satellite Awards Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film Taking
ChanceNominated
2009 Screen Actors GuildAwards
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in aMotion Picture Frost/Nixon Nominated
2010 Golden Globe Awards Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film Taking
ChanceWon
2010 Screen Actors GuildAwards
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor ina Miniseries or Television Movie
Taking
ChanceWon
2011 Teen Choice Awards Choice Movie Villain X-Men: First
ClassNominated
2013 Saturn Awards Best Actor on Television The Following Won2014 People's Choice Awards Favorite Dramatic TV Actor The Following Nominated2014 Saturn Awards Best Actor on Television The Following Pending
References
1. ^ Gary Boyd Roberts. "Ten Further Hollywood Figures (or Groups Thereof)"(http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/services/articles_gbr78.asp). New England Historic GenealogicalSociety. Retrieved January 2, 2008.
2. ^ Singer, Leigh (February 19, 2009). "Oscars: the best actors never to have been nominated"(http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/feb/19/best-actors-never-nominated-for-oscars). The Guardian.UK. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
3. ^ "Kevin Bacon" (http://www.biography.com/people/kevin-bacon-9542173). Biography.com. Retrieved July 21,2012.
4. ^ "ABOUT KEVIN BACON" (http://movies.yahoo.com/person/kevin-bacon/biography.html). yahoo movies.Retrieved July 21, 2012.
5. ^ a b Cosmopolitan. March 1991, p. 92.6. ^ Richard Corliss (February 20, 1984). "Revel Without a Cause"
Biography Channel.8. ^ Trip Gabriel (September 25, 1994). "A Second Wind Is Blowing For Kevin Bacon"
(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6D91F3BF936A1575AC0A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all). The New York Times.
9. ^ Macor, Alison (February 7, 1997). "Losing Chase" (http://www.austinchronicle.com/calendar/film/1997-02-07/283342/). The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
10. ^ Bruce Kirkland (September 14, 2005). "Kevin Bacon irked over movie rating"(http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/2005/09/14/1216527.html). Toronto Sun.
11. ^ Kit, Borys (July 15, 2010). " 'Winter's Bone' star cast in 'X-Men: First Class' (exclusive)"(http://web.archive.org/web/20100722010545/http://heatvision.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/07/winters-bone-star-cast-as-mystique-in-xmen-first-class.html). Heat Vision. Archived from the original(http://heatvision.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/07/winters-bone-star-cast-as-mystique-in-xmen-first-class.html) onJuly 22, 2010. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
12. ^ "KEVIN BACON Playing SEBASTIAN SHAW in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS"(http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2010/07/kevin-bacon-playing-sebastian-shaw-in-x.html). forcesofgeek.com. July 16,2010. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
13. ^ " 'Glee' Stars 'Touched' By Pitt & Clooney's Support Of '8' " (http://www.accesshollywood.com/jesse-tyler-ferguson/glee-stars-touched-by-brad-pitt-and-george-clooneys-support-of-8_article_61543). Access Hollywood.accesshollywood.com. Retrieved March 18, 2012.
14. ^ " "8": A Play about the Fight for Marriage Equality" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUG8F9uVgM).YouTube. Retrieved March 18, 2012.
15. ^ "YouTube to broadcast Proposition 8 play live" (http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/01/youtube-to-broadcast-proposition-8-play-live/). pinknews.co.uk. Retrieved March 18, 2012.
17. ^ Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts, The Reliable Source, Washington Post, March 26, 2008.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/25/AR2008032503852.html accessed September24, 2011.
External links
Kevin Bacon (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm102/) at the Internet Movie Database
Kevin Bacon (http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=90569) at the Internet Broadway Database
Kevin Bacon (http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?
search_by=people&first=Kevin&last=Bacon&middle=) at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Kevin Bacon (http://www.allmovie.com/artist/p3164) at AllMovie
Works by or about Kevin Bacon (http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n88-34930) in libraries (WorldCat
catalog)
Oracle of Bacon (http://oracleofbacon.org)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kevin_Bacon&oldid=609011230"
Categories: 1958 births Male actors from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania American male film actors
American male soap opera actors American male television actors American male voice actors
Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actor Golden Globe winners
Circle in the Square Theatre School alumni Living people Obie Award recipients
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners
Sedgwick family 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American male actors
18. ^ "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), 1 December 2005.
19. ^ "The Bacon Brothers Go 'On the Record' " (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343589,00.html). Fox News.
Retrieved 2011-10-11.
20. ^ " 'May God spare you no mercy', victim tells Madoff" (http://economiccrisis.us/2009/06/may-god-spare-mercy-
victim-tells-madoff/). Economic Crisis. June 30, 2009. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
21. ^ Bacon confirmed this on Late Show with Craig Ferguson, June 8, 2009
22. ^ Smolenyak, Megan (2011-07-18). "6 Degrees of Separation: Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon Are Cousins"
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