March 24, 2009, at 7:32 am
Kevin Norwood Bacon born July 8th 1958 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania; received his first role in a major motion picture earlier than the previous two members of this list. At the age of twenty, Kevin found a middle of the road part in Animal House, which did not launch his acting career to the heights he had hoped.Baby step by baby step, Kevin slowly worked his way through the early 80’s. After getting killed by Mrs. Vorhees in Friday the 13th, Bacon tried his luck as a soap opera star in The Guiding Light.
It wasn’t until 1984 that Kevin landed his first major role, alongside Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke and Daniel Stern in Diner. Playing a sarcastically funny drunk, Bacon appeared to find his calling card as an actor and danced into his biggest 80’s roll, Footloose. Unfortunately for Kevin, his fame was short lived as year after year, leading roles seemed out of his reach.
The rest of the 80’s came and went for Kevin without as much as a whimper. With the new decade dawning, Kevin decided to leave behind his dancing shoes and donned a shotgun in the cult horror classic Tremors. Even though this wasn’t the most prestigious of roles, it was good enough to get Kevin back in the acting game. Finding his stride, Bacon reeled off hit after hit with JFK in ’91, A Few Good Men in ’92, The River Wild in ’94, Apollo 13 in ’05 and Sleepers in ’96.
A few years of Horror misses including Stir of Echoes and Hollow Man did not stop Kevin from giving a few more excellent performances.Unlike Busey and Gere, Bacon has shown a few great performances since 2000, ala Mystic River and most recently Frost Nixon. Although Kevin had a few downturns in his career, his versatile acting style has obliged me to nominate Mr. Kevin Bacon as the 98th Best Actor of All-Time.
Kevin Bacon … mmmmmm Bacon. To be honest, I was never a fan of his 1980’s work, except for the film where he was overpowered by a 70 year old woman that wanted revenge. For me, Bacon’s first shining role came along side Tommy C in “A Few Good Men”. It would have been easy to forget Kevin when he stood along side such a super-sized cast, but his performance in the courtroom was just as unforgettable as Cruise and Nicholson’s were. Even with all of his great performances in Movies, Plays and Soaps, most of the world will remember Kevin for the “Six Degrees of Bacon”. To test your Kevin Bacon skills … CLICK HERE!
