Kevin Bacon biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Urban planner/architect Edmund Bacon and his wife, Ruth Hilda Holmes, a teacher and social activist, welcomed their youngest child of six, Kevin Norwood Bacon, on July 8, 1958, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Having an acting calling at a young age, Bacon attended the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, the Manning Street Actor's Theatre in Philadelphia and the Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York City's Greenwich Village.

Everybody Cut 'Footloose'

Kevin Bacon busted into movies as an ROTC soldier and fraternity pledge in the 1978 comedy National Lampoon's Animal House. Film roles rushed in for the actor after that, as did a Broadway role in The Slab Boys in 1983, which earned him an OBIE Award. Then came a part with which the actor would forever be associated: as rebellious city teen Ren McCormack, who wages war against a small town for banning rock music and dancing, in the 1980s classic Footloose. Bacon will always be remembered for his character's over-the-top dance scenes.

Six Degrees of ...

After Footloose came many mediocre movies for Bacon until Oliver Stone's 1991 historic piece, JFK, in which he played a gay hustler. Then came the 1994 thriller The River Wild, also starring Meryl Streep, which garnered Bacon a Golden Globe nod. Suddenly, the actor found himself in a slew of memorable movies, co-starring with what seemed like everyone in Hollywood: Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks, A Few Good Men with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, and Mystic River with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. In fact, Bacon became so prevalent that a game was made about his career entitled "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," the challenge of which is to link the actor to any other star in the fewest connections. (The performer also began an online nonprofit venture capitalizing on the name, Six Degrees.org.)

Moving to the Small Screen

Between flicks in 1981, Kevin Bacon had television stints on the soap opera Guiding Light. In 2009, his portrayal of a U.S. marine who returns the remains of a fallen solder in the TV movie Taking Chance won him a Screen Actor's Guild Award and an Emmy Award nomination. More recently, Bacon has gone full-steam ahead on the small screen, playing Ryan Hardy, a former FBI agent trying to recapture a sociopath with a cult of groupies, on the TV series The Following, which premiered in 2013.

Life with Kyra Sedgwick

Whether on the big screen or the tube, there's been one constant in Bacon's life, his wife, actress Kyra Sedgwick. The two met while doing American Playhouse's production of Lemon Sky in 1987, and married the following year.