Kevin Bacon

KEVIN BACON

Date of Birth: July 8, 1958

Kevin Bacon once starred in the first post-feminist environmental film ever made—Tremors. For those who haven't seen it, check it out. It's a hoot-and-a-half. Set in Nevada, the film features females who are as good—if not better—at saving the day than their male counterparts (thus the "post-feminist" tag). As for the environmental part, well, there are these giant human-devouring worms that slither beneath the Nevada desert, the same area once used to test atomic bombs. It's not a giant leap of the imagination to see these creatures as mutant beings created by humankind's callous treatment of the environment.

But before Tremors, the native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, headed to New York at 17, where he became one of the youngest students admitted to the Circle in the Square Theater school. But after that auspicious beginning he began the normal actor routine of waiting tables while waiting for his big break. He bounced around from small parts in such films as National Lampoon's Animal House and theater work—he won an Obie for his part in Forty-Deuce which he later reprised for the screen. He even had a part in the soap opera Guiding Light.

He first gathered critical attention when he appeared in Barry Levinson's Diner and followed that up two years later with the hit Footloose—a rather lame film that had Hollywood trying to cast Bacon in the leading man role, for which he really isn't suited. He's really much better taking on the smaller roles, the character parts he's so good at. And he himself realizes that now.

"I have no confidence in my ability to be a leading man," Bacon says. "I don't think I have the thing some actors have—an immediately appealing presence, a great killer smile like Nicholson, a wit like Hanks or Michael Keaton, who have a naturally funny edge.

"I'm happy with that now. Things are going better....I'm happier being a character actor, it gives me something to hang my hat on. I know how to do it. And it takes the pressure off."

In 1994, Bacon and his brother Michael formed a band called the Bacon Brothers, and started playing their folk-rock and soul-influenced music at small clubs in the Northeast. "I've been blessed that I've had an acting career," he says, "and I'm eternally grateful, but the real obsession I had was to get up and play rock and roll."

In 1996, Bacon added filmmaking to his resumé with his directorial debut feature Losing Chase a film about the healing friendship between two troubled women starring his wife Kyra Sedgwick and Helen Mirren.

Bacon has been married to Sedgwick since 1988 and they have two children together. The pair are happiest living together on the East Coast far away from Hollywood but continually make the pilgrimage to the Left Coast to pursue work.

He received a Golden Globe award nomination for his work in The River Wild (1994) and a Blockbuster award as Favorite Actor - Science Fiction for Hollow Man (2000). He also received acclaim for his work in the Academy award winning movie Mystic River (2003), including a shared Boston Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Ensemble Cast. On September 30, 2003, Bacon received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He won a Golden Globe in 2010 for his work in the TV movie Taking Chance (2009). In recent years, he's appeared in a slew of films, including X-Men: First Class (2011), Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), Jayne Mansfield's Car (2012), R.I.P.D. ,(2013), Black Mass (2015), and The Darkness (2016). In 2017, he starred alongside Mark Wahlberg in the true-story drama about the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, Patriots Day.

Filmography::

Patriots Day (2017)
The Darkness (2016)
Black Mass (2015)
R.I.P.D. (2013)
Jayne Mansfield's Car (2012)
X-Men: First Class (2011)
Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)
My One and Only (2009)
Frost/Nixon (2008)
New York, I Love You (2008)
Rails & Ties (2007)
Death Sentence (2007)
Saving Angelo (2007)
The Air I Breathe (2007)
Where the Truth Lies (2005)
Beauty Shop (2005)
Loverboy (2005)
The Woodsman (2005)
In The Cut (2003)
Mystic River (2003)
Trapped (2002)
Novocaine (2001)
Hollow Man (2000)
My Dog Skip (2000)
Stir of Echoes (1999)
Wild Things (1998)
Digging To China (1998)
Telling Lies in America (1997)
Picture Perfect (1997)
Sleepers / La correction (1996)
Balto (1995) (voice)
Apollo 13 (1995)
Murder in the First (1995)
The Air Up There (1994)
The River Wild (1994)
New York Skyride (1994)
A Few Good Men (1992)
He Said, She Said (1991)
JFK (1991)
Pyrates (1991)
Queens Logic (1991)
Flatliners (1990)
Tremors (1990)
The Big Picture (1989)
Criminal Law (1989)
She’s Having a Baby (1988)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
End of the Line (1987)
White Water Summer (1987)
Quicksilver (1986)
Footloose (1984)
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1983)
Diner (1982)
Forty Deuce (1982)
Only When I Laugh (1981)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Hero At Large (1980)
Starting Over (1979)
National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)