59 Fun Facts About Kevin Bacon

In which city was Kevin Bacon born and raised?

Philadelphia is where he learned the trade as a teenager, studying and performing at the Manning Street Actor's Theatre before he finished high school and left to chase a stage career.

At 17, Bacon left home to study acting in which city?

New York drew him to the Circle in the Square theater school. His first film did not bring the breakthrough he hoped for, so he went back to the stage.

Kevin Bacon's father, Edmund Bacon, reshaped his home city's downtown in which job?

Urban planner Edmund Bacon ran his city's planning commission for two decades, and at 92 he rode a skateboard across a park he had conceived to defy a ban on skating there.

Bacon made his feature film debut in which 1978 comedy?

Animal House took him because its director wanted unknowns rather than famous comedians. It made him no star, though, and he went back to waiting tables.

In which 1980 slasher film did Bacon play a camp counselor?

Friday the 13th gave him what he calls a classic slasher death: his counselor Jack smokes a joint and sleeps with his girlfriend, which in that genre means you are next.

How is Bacon's camp counselor Jack killed from beneath his bunk in the 1980 slasher?

An arrow through the throat, shot with Bacon kneeling under the bed, his head poking through a hole above the only fake neck they had. The blood pump broke, so the effects man blew through the tube himself.

Which pair, one a future Top Gun star, shared Bacon's Broadway debut, Slab Boys?

Sean Penn and Val Kilmer joined him in 1983 in a play set among Scottish apprentices grinding colours in a carpet factory, a job the playwright John Byrne had once done himself.

Which theater award did Bacon win in 1982 for the off-Broadway play Forty Deuce?

An Obie Award, the off-Broadway honor, went to Bacon for playing a young street hustler in Forty Deuce, and he repeated the part that year in a low-budget film of the play.

Bacon played Fenwick in which 1982 Barry Levinson film about friends in 1959 Baltimore?

Diner cast him as Fenwick, the friend who fakes a car crash for a laugh, and the cult hit launched not just Bacon but Steve Guttenberg and Ellen Barkin too.

What is the name of Bacon's character in Footloose?

Ren McCormack, the Chicago kid who takes on a town's dancing ban, made Bacon a pop idol, which he has said was the last thing he wanted as a serious stage actor.

How did Bacon prepare for his Footloose role?

He went undercover at a high school in Provo for a day as the new kid and was picked on for his tie and hair, which he says shaped how he played the part.

The town behind Footloose lifted its dancing ban in 1980 so students could hold what?

A junior prom was the prize: Elmore City had banned dancing since 1898, and the school board split 2-2 until its president broke the tie with the words "Let 'em dance."

Which two actors were slated for the Footloose lead before Bacon?

Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe both fell through: the producers loved Cruise's Risky Business underwear dance but he was filming All the Right Moves, and Lowe tore a knee ligament while auditioning.

Bacon was furious that which Footloose scene needed four doubles?

The warehouse dance used a stunt double, a dance double and two gymnasts as well as him. When the studio told him never to mention them, he refused.

Who played the dance-banning Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose?

John Lithgow plays him as a grieving father rather than a villain: the ban followed his son's death in a car crash after a night of drinking and dancing.

Which Deniece Williams song from Footloose was nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar?

Let's Hear It for the Boy was a replacement: the director felt the song first set to the scene where Bacon's character teaches a friend to dance was not working, so its writers came up with a new one.

Bacon had a cameo in which 1987 John Hughes comedy?

Planes, Trains and Automobiles has him beat Steve Martin to a Manhattan taxi. Early the next year he had the lead in Hughes's She's Having a Baby.

In which 1990 movie did Bacon's character save a desert town from underground 'graboid' monsters?

Tremors came in a career slump, and he groaned that he couldn't believe he was doing a movie about underground worms. Decades later he shot a TV revival that no network picked up.

In Joel Schumacher's Flatliners (1990), Bacon plays a medical student who does what?

He experiments with near-death alongside Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland: they stop their own hearts to glimpse the afterlife, and each comes back haunted by a past wrong.

In A Few Good Men (1992), Bacon played what role in the courtroom?

The prosecuting attorney he plays, Marine captain Jack Ross, offers a plea deal before trial. The accused refuse it as dishonorable, which is what sends the case into open court.

Bacon earned a Golden Globe nomination as the villain of The River Wild (1994) opposite which actress?

Meryl Streep plays the rafting guide whose family trip his armed robber hijacks. He called the shoot grueling, since everyone fell out of the boat at some point and had to be saved.

Bacon played which real astronaut in Apollo 13 (1995), a backup who joined the crew days before launch?

Jack Swigert stepped in when Ken Mattingly was grounded over a measles scare. It is his character who stirs the oxygen tanks moments before one of them explodes.

Who directed Bacon and Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 (1995)?

Ron Howard shot the weightless scenes for real, taking cast and crew up in a NASA training plane for hundreds of dives that each gave well under a minute of float.

Bacon directed the 1996 TV film Losing Chase, which won which actress a Golden Globe?

Helen Mirren won as a woman home from a breakdown who slowly warms to the helper her husband hires. Bacon cast his own wife as the helper.

On the 1998 thriller Wild Things, Bacon took a supporting role and also served as what?

As executive producer he backed a script he called the trashiest thing he had ever read, won over because every few pages sprang another surprise.

In Hollow Man (2000), Bacon's scientist tests a serum on himself that leaves him what?

Invisible and unable to change back, he turns on his own team. Paul Verhoeven directed, and the effects that strip him away layer by layer earned an Oscar nomination.

Who directed Mystic River (2003), in which Bacon starred with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins?

Clint Eastwood is known for shooting fast, and Bacon said he did two or three takes at most and sometimes walked away after filming only the rehearsal.

In Murder in the First (1995), Bacon plays Henri Young, broken by years of solitary in which island prison?

Alcatraz was both setting and location. Bacon slept in a solitary cell to prepare and shed weight he said he did not have to lose, and he calls it his toughest role.

In the 2004 drama The Woodsman, Bacon played what kind of character?

He plays a sex offender on parole, home after 12 years in prison and living across from a school. Bacon admitted it was a tough sell, but it brought him an Independent Spirit nomination.

Bacon won a Golden Globe for playing Marine Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl in which 2009 HBO film?

Taking Chance is named for the fallen Marine, 19-year-old Chance Phelps. Strobl volunteered to escort his body home to Wyoming, and his journal of that trip became the film.

Which Hellfire Club leader did Bacon play as the villain of X-Men: First Class (2011)?

Sebastian Shaw first appears as a Nazi scientist who kills young Erik Lehnsherr's mother to unlock the boy's powers. That murder sets the future Magneto on a lifelong hunt for revenge.

In Fox's The Following, Bacon's ex-FBI agent hunts a killer whose cult is inspired by which author?

Edgar Allan Poe is the fixation of Joe Carroll, an English professor and novelist who gathers a cult of followers while on death row. Their killings pay homage to the writer's stories.

Which actor, Mark Antony in HBO's Rome, played serial killer Joe Carroll opposite Bacon in The Following?

James Purefoy plays him as a charismatic professor and novelist who escapes death row and keeps directing a cult of followers he recruited from prison.

Showtime's City on a Hill, starring Bacon as a corrupt FBI veteran, grew from an original idea by which star?

Ben Affleck had the idea and produced the show with Matt Damon. It fictionalizes the early-1990s "Boston Miracle", with Bacon's Jackie Rohr joining an assistant district attorney against Charlestown armored-car robbers.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon's inventors got it on TV by writing to which host's show?

Jon Stewart got a letter from snowed-in Albright College roommates calling Bacon the center of the entertainment universe. They explained the game on his show, and Bacon later joined them there.

In Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), Bacon's character has an affair with Steve Carell's wife, played by which actress?

Julianne Moore plays Emily, who ends a 25-year marriage in the opening scene by confessing she slept with her co-worker David Lindhagen. Her husband moves out and takes to moping in a cocktail bar.

What is Kevin Bacon's own Bacon number?

0 is his score because he is the starting point, and anyone who shared a film with him scores 1. Elvis Presley is a 2, through Change of Habit co-star Ed Asner, who appeared with Bacon in JFK.

How did Bacon initially react to the Six Degrees game?

He disliked it, thinking it mocked him, and later said he was horrified by what felt like a giant joke at his expense. He came around, wrote the foreword to the inventors' book and named his charity site after it.

In 2012 which search engine added a feature that showed any actor's 'Bacon Number'?

Google built the game into search that September. Typing "Bacon number" before any actor's name returned the score and the chain of films that linked the two.

The Erdős–Bacon number adds a Bacon number to one named for a prolific figure in which field?

Mathematics was the life of Paul Erdős, who published with more than 500 co-authors. An actor needs a research paper to qualify, as Colin Firth did with a neuroscience study in Current Biology.

With which family member did Bacon form a touring band in the mid-1990s?

His brother Michael is an Emmy-winning composer, but the songs are not all his: both brothers write them, and they tour as The Bacon Brothers.

Bacon's band titled its 1997 debut album Forosoco, a word built from what?

Folk, rock, soul and country are the styles the band blends, and the title stitches together the first two letters of each. They went on using the word as the name for their sound.

Whom did Bacon marry in September 1988?

Kyra Sedgwick acted with him on a 1987 film set and was put off: he thinks he's really cool, she remembers deciding. He says he was knocked out by her at once.

Bacon and his wife learned they are ninth cousins, once removed, on which PBS ancestry series?

Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr. showed his wife a photo of a distant cousin and said, "And his name is Kevin Bacon." She shouted "I knew it!", having worried the show would turn up a link.

Bacon and his wife lost part of their savings in the Ponzi scheme run by which swindler?

Bernie Madoff held most of the couple's money when his fraud collapsed. Bacon says they told each other "that sucks", rolled up their sleeves and went back to work, and they later recovered a portion.

In 2012 Bacon began fronting a Six Degrees-themed ad campaign for which UK mobile network?

EE hired him to launch the UK's first 4G network. In the first TV ad he explains the game himself and traces his own links to other famous faces.

Bacon's wife is best known for playing Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on which crime drama?

The Closer also put him behind the camera. He directed his wife in four episodes of her TNT hit, beginning with the second season's finale.

Which actress dated Bacon for five years before each of them married someone else in 1988?

Tracy Pollan told People in 1986 that they would probably marry and that she was gushingly in love. They split soon after, and she married Michael J. Fox, her Family Ties co-star.

In The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, Mantis and Drax kidnap Bacon as a Christmas gift for whom?

Peter Quill has been in low spirits since losing Gamora, so his friends fly to Earth to fetch his childhood hero. Mantis has to use her mind powers on a terrified Bacon to get him aboard.

In Bacon's 2020 comedy podcast, a washed-up actor who vows to kill him accidentally lands what job?

His assistant is the job Randy Beslow stumbles into after 30 years of blaming Bacon for beating him to the Footloose lead. Matt Walsh plays Randy in The Last Degree of Kevin Bacon, and Bacon plays a heightened version of himself.

Bacon's corrupt Captain Cade Grant is the villain facing which returning 1980s movie cop in a 2024 Netflix sequel?

Axel Foley, Eddie Murphy's Detroit detective, heads back to Beverly Hills when his estranged daughter is targeted, and he distrusts Captain Grant from their first meeting. Reviewers found Bacon's villain just as easy to spot.

Bacon played a young alcoholic in 1980–81 on which soap, which ended in 2009 after 72 years?

Guiding Light began on radio in 1937. Bacon's film debut had not made him a star, so he paid his way with soap parts like Tim Werner and with shifts waiting tables.

In which 2005 comedy did Bacon appear alongside Queen Latifah?

Beauty Shop cast him as Jorge, the haughty Austrian-accented owner of an upscale Atlanta salon, whose put-downs push Latifah's Gina to quit and open her own place. She first played Gina in Barbershop 2.

Bacon played the title role in which Amazon Prime Video series from 2016 to 2017?

I Love Dick cast him as Dick, an artist-cowboy with an air of mystique in Marfa, Texas, who becomes the fixation of a visiting filmmaker played by Kathryn Hahn. The part earned him a Golden Globe nomination.

Bacon appears late in Netflix's 2023 thriller Leave the World Behind as Danny, a neighbor who is what?

A doomsday prepper, Danny is the man Amanda remembers seeing at the market, stocking up on bottled water and canned goods. He is also the contractor who worked on the house, and he is fully supplied when the families come asking.

In 2015 Bacon became a commercial spokesperson for which US industry?

Eggs go with bacon, so the American Egg Board's 2015 campaign was called Wake Up to Eggs with Bacon. Its web film had him lying on a kitchen counter, insisting that he doesn't like puns.

Bacon voiced which half-wolf sled dog, who hauls medicine to sick Alaskan children in a 1995 animated film?

Balto is an outcast, half wolf and half dog, who leads a lost sled team home with the diphtheria medicine. The film is loosely based on the real 1925 serum run to Nome, Alaska.

In which 2016 film about the Boston Marathon bombing did Bacon star?

Patriots Day cast him as Richard DesLauriers, the real FBI agent in charge, who hesitates to release the suspects' pictures and clashes with the police commissioner over it.

Which actor played Boston gangster Whitey Bulger in Black Mass (2015), with Bacon as a suspicious FBI boss?

Johnny Depp played Bulger as an ice-cold informant who got the better of the deal, using the FBI's protection to cover his crimes while handing over next to nothing. Bacon's bureau boss is left suspicious and fuming.