Kevin 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. Bacon’s debut in the movie business was a small role in the fraternity comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) which did not immediately lead to the fame he had sought so he returned to waiting tables and auditioning for small theater roles while briefly working on the television soap opera Search for Tomorrow (1979) and Guiding Light (1980-1981) in New York.
In 1980, he had a prominent role in the slasher film Friday the 13th. In 1982, he won an Obie Award for his role in Forty Deuce, and soon after he made his Broadway debut in Slab Boys, with then-unknown Sean Penn and Val Kilmer. However, it was not until he portrayed Timothy Fenwick that same year in Barry Levinson’s film Diner that he made an impression on film critics and moviegoers alike.
Bolstered by the attention from is performance in Diner, Bacon starred in the box-office smash Footloose (1984) earning strong reviews and appearing on the cover of People magazine soon after its release. In 1988, he starred in John Hughes’ comedy She’s Having a Baby, and the following year he was in another comedy called The Big Picture. By 1991, he began to give up on the idea of playing a leading man and focused on being a character actor and landed the role of gay prostitute Willie O’Keefe in Oliver Stone’s JFK and went on to play a prosecuting attorney in the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men.
His role in Murder in the First earned him a Broadcast Film Critic’s Association Award in 1995, the same year that he starred in the blockbuster hit Apollo 13. Bacon made his directorial debut with a television film Losing Chase (1996) which was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, winning one. In 2000, he appeared in Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow Man. In 2003 he acted with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins in Clint Eastwood‘s movie Mystic River. From 2013 to 2015, he starred as Ryan Hardy in the FOX television series The Following and in 2013 won a Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television for that role.
Bacon is the subject of the trivia game titled Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, based on the idea that, due to his prolific screen career covering a diverse range of genres, any Hollywood actor can be linked to another in a handful of steps based on their association with Bacon. Although he was initially dismayed by the game, the meme stuck, and he eventually embraced it, forming the charitable initiative SixDegrees.org, a social networking site intended to link people and charities to each other. Kevin also has a love for music and formed a band called The Bacon Brothers with is brother, Michael, and the duo has released six albums.
In 2003, Kevin Bacon was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a star for his contribution to Motion Pictures presented to him by the Chamber of Commerce.
Will Ferrell, born John William Ferrell is an American Film Actor, Television Actor, Writer, Comedian and Producer.
Will Ferrell
QUICK FACTS
Born:July 16, 1967 in Irvine, California
Spouse:Viveca Paulin (m. 2000)
Children:Magnus Paulin Ferrell, Mattias Paulin Ferrell, Alex Paulin Ferrell
Parents:Lee Ferrell (Righteous Brothers Keyboardist), Kay Ferrell (Teacher)
Education:USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (1990), The Groundlings, University High School, Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, Turtle Rock Elementary School
