Kevin Bacon

Kevin Norwood Bacon, born July 8, 1958, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an American actor whose career spans film, television, and stage. The youngest of six children, he grew up in a family shaped by civic and artistic values. His mother, Ruth Hilda Bacon, was an elementary school teacher and liberal activist, while his father, Edmund Bacon, served as executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and wrote the influential urban planning text Design of Cities. Bacon attended Julia R. Masterman School in Philadelphia's Spring Garden neighborhood for his middle and high school years. At sixteen, he earned a full state-funded scholarship to the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a five-week program where he studied theater under Glory Van Scott.

At seventeen, Bacon left Philadelphia to pursue a theater career in New York City, appearing at the Circle in the Square Theater School. His screen debut came in the fraternity comedy National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978, though the role did not bring immediate recognition, and he returned to waiting tables while auditioning for smaller parts. During this period he worked briefly on the television soap operas Search for Tomorrow in 1979 and Guiding Light from 1980 to 1981. Early stage work included Getting Out at New York's Phoenix Theater and Flux at Second Stage Theatre during their 1981–1982 season. In 1982, he won an Obie Award for his performance in Forty Deuce, and that same year made his Broadway debut in Slab Boys alongside Sean Penn and Val Kilmer.

Also in 1982, Bacon portrayed Timothy Fenwick in Barry Levinson's film Diner, appearing opposite Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Tim Daly, and Ellen Barkin. The performance drew strong attention from critics and audiences and positioned him for his breakthrough role in the musical-drama film Footloose in 1984. To prepare for that part, Bacon enrolled in a high school under the name Ren McCormick to observe teenagers firsthand. The film earned him considerable critical praise. His success in those two projects led to a period of typecasting, and he subsequently sought roles that cast him against type, a strategy he later described as contributing to a career slump.

Bacon continued building his stage résumé alongside his film work. He appeared in Spike Heels in 1991, directed by Michael Greif. His Broadway career extended from 1983 to 2002, during which he starred in An Almost Holy Picture in addition to his earlier appearance in Slab Boys.

Throughout the 1990s, Bacon took on a range of film roles that demonstrated his versatility. In 1990 he appeared in both the comedy-horror film Tremors and Joel Schumacher's Flatliners. He played gay prostitute Willie O'Keefe in Oliver Stone's JFK in 1991 and a prosecuting attorney in A Few Good Men in 1992. A Golden Globe nomination followed his work in The River Wild in 1994, opposite Meryl Streep. The following year he appeared in the blockbuster Apollo 13 and received the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Murder in the First. He made his directorial debut with the 1996 television film Losing Chase, which received three Golden Globe nominations and won one. Later credits from the decade include Sleepers, Picture Perfect, Wild Things, and Stir of Echoes.

In the 2000s, Bacon appeared in Hollow Man, My Dog Skip, Mystic River in 2003, The Woodsman in 2004, and Frost/Nixon in 2008. He directed the feature film Loverboy in 2005. On television, he received both a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Michael Strobl in the HBO film Taking Chance in 2009. He subsequently starred in the Fox drama series The Following from 2013 to 2015, played the title role in the Amazon Prime Video series I Love Dick from 2016 to 2017, and appeared in the Showtime series City on a Hill from 2019 to 2022. Additional film credits include Friday the 13th, Balto, Crazy, Stupid, Love, X-Men: First Class, and Patriots Day.

In 2003, Bacon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His wide-ranging body of work across genres has made him a cultural reference point, most notably through the trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which uses his career as an illustration of interconnectedness among people. He serves as a brand ambassador for the British mobile network operator EE and has appeared in advertising for the company. Bacon is married to actress Kyra Sedgwick.