Background

Ethnicity: Kevin Bacon is of mostly English, and some German and Irish, ancestry. Much of his family tree goes back to Colonial America of the 1600s.

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, the United States.

Education

Bacon attended Julia R. Masterman High School for both middle and high school. Having an acting calling at a young age, Bacon earned a scholarship to study at the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts at Bucknell University, where he studied theater under Dr. Glory Van Scott. The experience solidified Bacon's passion for the arts.

Career

Bacon left home at age 17 to pursue a theater career in New York City, where he appeared in a production at the Circle in the Square Theater School. He eventually began appearing in TV soap operas as well, such as Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light.

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. After appearing in a few minor roles on the big screen, Kevin Bacon played his first important role in the 1980 slasher film Friday the 13th. Directed by Sean S Cunningham, the film was a huge commercial success, earning around $60 million on a budget of a mere $550 thousand. It was met with mixed to positive reviews. The film has earned cult status over the years. Next came 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.

After Footloose, many mediocre movies came for Bacon. In 1990, Bacon finally had two successful roles. He played a character who saved his town from under-the-earth "Graboid" monsters in the comedy/horror film Tremors, and he portrayed an earnest medical student experimenting with death in Joel Schumacher's Flatliners.

Bacon appearedOliver Stone's 1991 historic piece, JFK, in which he played a gay hustler. The film showed the events that led to the United States President John F Kennedy’s assassination, and how multiple people tried to cover it up. Directed by Oliver Stone, the film was a commercial success and won two Oscars out of eight nominations. The film also kindled considerable controversy.

The following year, Bacon played one of the main roles in A Few Good Men, a 1992 legal drama film, which was directed by Rob Reiner. It revolved around the court-martial of two United States Marines charged with the murder of a fellow Marine, and how their lawyers prepare a case to defend them. The film was a huge success commercially and was met with positive reviews. It was also nominated for four Oscars, including one in the category of Best Film. In 1994, Bacon earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in The River Wild, opposite Meryl Streep. His next film, Murder in the First, earned him the Broadcast Film Critic's Association Award in 1995, the same year that he starred in the blockbuster hit Apollo 13, where he played an important role. The film did well commercially and was nominated for nine Oscars, out of which it won two.

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).

Over the years, Bacon appeared in several other films, such as Telling Lies in America (1997), Wild Things (1998), We Married Margo (2000), Trapped (2002), The Woodsman (2004), Frost/Nixon (2008) and Super (2010).

In 2010, J&D Foods commissioned a larger-than-life-size bust of Bacon made out of bacon. Auctioned off for charity, it was named Bacon Kevin Bacon.

Kevin Bacon had television stints on the soap opera Guiding Light. His portrayal of a United States Marine who returns the remains of a fallen soldier in the TV movie Taking Chance won him a Screen Actor's Guild Award and an Emmy Award nomination. He portrayed the supervillain Sebastian Shaw in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, the film was based on the Marvel Comics characters known as the X-Men. The movie depicts the X-Men’s fight against the Hellfire Club which is led by an evil mutant named Sebastian Shaw, portrayed by Bacon. The film did well commercially and was met with positive reviews. The film also earned several awards and nominations.

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 ran 2013 until 2015. Bacon’s role earned him the Saturn Award for Best Actor.

Bacon's next TV role was playing an artist-cowboy who becomes the mutual infatuation for a husband and wife in the offbeat comedy I Love Dick. In 2017, after the first full season aired on Amazon, the actor scored the third Golden Globe nomination of his career. In June 2017, Variety confirmed that Syfy is planning a TV reboot of Tremors with Bacon set to reprise his role.

In June 2019, Bacon appeared in City on a Hill, an American crime drama series created by Charlie McLean, based on an original idea by Ben Affleck and MacLean. Set in Boston in the early 90s when the city was rife with violent criminals emboldened by local law enforcement agencies, in which corruption, tribalism and "taking it to the street" was the norm until it all suddenly changed. This is a fictional account of what was called the "Boston Miracle". The change agent is District Attorney Decourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge), who comes from Brooklyn and forms an unlikely alliance with Jackie Rohr (Kevin Bacon), a corrupt yet venerated FBI veteran who is deeply invested in maintaining the status quo. Together they take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown (Jonathan Tucker, Mark O'Brien and James Michael Cummings) in a case that grows to encompass and eventually upend Boston’s citywide criminal justice system.

When not acting or spending time with his family, Kevin Bacon makes folk-rock music with his brother Michael Bacon, an Emmy Award-winning composer. Their band, the Bacon Brothers, had released six records by early 2013. This outlet fits Bacon's innovative side in ways acting doesn't. "I don't create the movies I'm in," he told Billboard.com in 2012. "When it comes to music, it's my clothes, it's my guitar, it's my voice, it's my song."

Achievements

• Bacon won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, also receiving a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Bacon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6356 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on September 30, 2003.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Cavedweller

    (From Dorothy Allison, the bestselling author of "Bastard ...)

    2004
  • Footloose

    (Footloose portrays the timeless struggle between innocent...)

    1984
  • National Lampoon's Animal House

    (Don't miss the quintessential college movie: Faber Colleg...)

    1978
  • My One And Only

    (Renee Zellweger stars as a mother who travels down the Ea...)

    2009
  • White Water Summer

    (White Water Summer is a 'rite of passage' adventure in wh...)

    1987
  • Diner

    (From legendary Hollywood director Barry Levinson comes th...)

    1982
  • In The Cut

    (This sensual thriller features Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo ...)

    2003
  • Apollo 13

    (A "routine" space flight becomes a desperate battle to su...)

    1995
  • R.I.P.D.

    (Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds headline this supernatural...)

    2013
  • Tremors

    (Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward are in a fight for their lives ...)

    1990
  • Black Mass

    (In 1970s South Boston, FBI Agent John Connolly persuades ...)

    2015
  • Cop Car

    (When two young boys (James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Well...)

    2015
  • Trapped

    (From the producer of Thelma & Louise comes a white-knuckl...)

    2002
  • Patriot's Day

    (Mark Wahlberg shines in this all-star action-thriller tha...)

    2016
  • Murder in the First

    (A convict is on trial for murdering a fellow inmate and t...)

    1995
  • The Darkness

    (From the producers of The Purge and Insidious comes a sup...)

    2016
  • Rails & Ties

    (When a suicidal mother is killed by parking her car in fr...)

    2007
  • Picture Perfect

    (When an unattached female ad exec invents a fictional fia...)

    1997
  • My Dog Skip

    (Kevin Bacon, Diane Lane and Frankie Muniz star in this he...)

    2000
  • Frost/Nixon

    (From Academy Award-winning director, Ron Howard, comes th...)

    2008
  • The Woodsman

    (After 12 years in prison, Walter (Golden Globe winner Kev...)

    2004
  • Where The Truth Lies

    (A female journalist tries to uncover the truth behind the...)

    2005
  • Super

    (Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon bring...)

    2010
  • JFK

    (An Academy Award-winning docudrama chronicling New Orlean...)

    1991
  • Elephant White

    (Mercenary Curtie Church is hired to take out a notorious ...)

    2011
  • The River Wild

    (Meryl Streep portrays a former river guide who arranges a...)

    1994
  • Hollow Man

    (Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue play former lovers who, al...)

    2000
  • Sleepers

    (A top-notch cast headlines this Oscar-nominated drama abo...)

    1996
  • A Few Good Men

    (A slick, young Navy lawyer is assigned to investigate a m...)

    1992
  • Telling Lies in America

    (Karchy Jonas was born in Hungary and immigrated to Clevel...)

    1997
  • End of the Line

    (When the closure of a railway is announced, employees com...)

    1987
  • He Said, She Said

    (Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins are competing journalis...)

    1991
  • Hero at Large

    (Comedic legend John Ritter stars as a struggling actor wh...)

    1980
  • Quicksilver

    (After losing his life savings playing the market, an opti...)

    1986
  • Flatliners

    (Kiefer Sutherland and Julia Roberts lead a talented group...)

    1990
  • Stir of Echoes

    (After being hypnotized, Tom (Kevin Bacon) is haunted by t...)

    1999
  • Planes, Trains and Automobiles

    (Neal Page is an advertising executive who just wants to f...)

    1987
  • X-men: First Class

    (Following the classic Marvel mythology, X-men: First Clas...)

    2011
  • Novocaine

    (A dentist finds himself a murder suspect after a sexy pat...)

    2001
  • Death Sentence

    (A mild-mannered executive with a perfect life witnesses s...)

    2007
  • Friday the 13th

    (Camp Crystal Lake has been shuttered for over 20 years du...)

    1980
  • Loverboy

    (Emily (Kyra Sedgwick) is a beautiful and brilliant loner ...)

    2005
  • The Big Picture

    (Hollywood is hilariously lampooned in this behind-the-sce...)

    1989
  • Wild Things

    (Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon and Neve Campbell star in a stea...)

    1998
  • Only When I Laugh

    (An actress decides to give up custody of her daughter in ...)

    1981
  • Criminal Law

    (Attorney Oldman successfully defends accused killer Kevin...)

    1989
  • The Air Up There

    (A basketball coach travels to Africa to recruit a new star.)

    1994
  • Crazy, Stupid, Love

    (Fortysomething Cal Weaver has the perfect life...until hi...)

    2011
  • Beauty Shop

    (Gina Norris is a long way from the Barbershop. She's move...)

    2005
  • Jayne Mansfield's Car

    (From Academy Award-winner Billy Bob Thornton. Two familie...)

    2012
  • She's Having a Baby

    (Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they a...)

    1988
  • Mystic River

    (We bury our sins; we wash them clean. Academy Award winne...)

    2003
  • Can't Complain 2001

• music

  • Forosoco 1997
  • Getting There 1999
  • White Knuckles 2005
  • New Year's Day 2008
  • 36 Cents 2014
  • Philadelphia Road 2011

• TV series

  • The Following

    (Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy star in this terrifying thr...)

    2013
  • I Love Dick

    (Adapted from the lauded feminist novel, I Love Dickis set...)

    2016
  • City on a Hill

    (An unlikely pair take on Boston's corrupt criminal justic...)

    2019

Religion

Kevin Bacon was raised in a Catholic family, but he confirmed, that he doesn't believe in God in an interview for the Times of London. He has also said that he is not anti-religion.

Furthermore, Bacon has dedicated much time and energy to promoting the cause of the separation of church and state. He once said: "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."

The vehicle for many of Bacon’s attempts to promote this cause is his band, The Bacon Brothers, which will play events in support of the division of church and state, such as a 2008 festival in Washington D.C. put on by Interfaith Alliance and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In one of their songs, they sing: "Please don’t hurt the children, please lay down the road. Please don‘t send your bombs in and say you‘re doing the work of God."

Bacon married a Jewish woman, actress Kyra Sedgwick. However, their wedding was conducted at a civil ceremony and Sedgwick herself has admitted to being rather far removed from any sort of formal faith.

Politics

In 2007, Kevin Bacon hit the campaign trail for Democratic presidential nominee John Edwards and contributed thousands of dollars to his campaign. In 2012, when Obama was struggling to maintain the presidency, Bacon went to bat for him with an official endorsement, saying: "I think he has already made a difference and I support him."

Views

When Republicans and conservatives were trying to rally the base around women’s reproductive issues, Bacon did an announcement blasting conservative lawmakers on behalf of an organization called the Center for Reproductive Rights, the mission of which is the “advancement and protection of reproductive rights as fundamental human rights in constitutional and international law.”

Quotations: "There are two types of actors: those who say they want to be famous and those who are liars."

"I think of being an actor as kind of a young man's gig. It's emasculating, in a way, people messing with you and putting make-up on you and telling you when to wake up and when to go to sleep, holding your hand to cross the street. I can do it up to a certain point and then I start to feel like a puppet."

"I've heard people say you have to love the characters you play. I don't feel that way. I've played a lot of people that I don't love at all. What's important to me is to try to make them real."

"Most actors want to have the world look at us and love us, and those who say that that's not really a driving force for them, I don't believe."

"I'm not a public speaker. I don't even like making toasts. It hits me in a way I can't really explain. I've literally sat with a therapist to try to figure out what that is, because I'm such a public persona."

Personality

Physical Characteristics: Bacon has an athletic build, a height of 5 ft 10 in or 178 cm, and a weight of 76 kg or 167.5 lbs. He has light brown hair and blue eyes. Bacon has a fairly active lifestyle, which helps him maintain amazing levels of fitness even with the advancing age. He loves lifting weights in the gym and occasionally works out with a trainer. In 1995, the Empire Magazine had him at the 61st position in the list comprising of 100 Sexiest Stars in film history.

Interests

• Music & Bands

  Big Brother And The Holding Company, Johnny Cash, 4 Non Blondes, Ryan Adams, Fred Neil, The Beatles

Connections

Bacon has been married to actress Kyra Sedgwick since September 4, 1988; they met on the set of the PBS version of Lanford Wilson's play Lemon Sky. Bacon and Sedgwick have starred together in Pyrates, 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 Manhattan. Bacon was previously in a five-year relationship with actress Tracy Pollan, in the 1980s.

Father:

Edmund Norwood Bacon

Edmund Bacon, a famous Philadelphia city planner, was featured on the November 6, 1964, cover of Time magazine. His mother was Ruth (Holmes) Bacon, a teacher, and liberal political activist.

Mother:

Ruth Hilda Holmes

Spouse:

Kyra Sedgwick

Bacon and wife Kyra Sedgwick discovered they are ninth cousins when they appeared on PBS’ ancestry search series Finding Your Roots.

colleague:

Laurence Fishburne III

Son:

Travis Sedgwick

Travis plays guitar for the metal band Black Anvil.

Daughter:

Sosie Ruth Bacon

Sosie is an actress, best known for playing Skye in 13 Reasons Why.

Brother:

Michael Bacon

colleague:

Charlize Theron