Kevin Bacon grew up in Philadelphia and aged 17 left home to pursue a career on the stage in New York City. He soon found himself working in several small soap operas but stayed in the Big Apple to remain close to the theatre.
In 1983 he made his Broadway debut in
Slab Boys alongside unknown actors
Sean Penn and Val Kilmer, and the following year he made a name for himself in film with a role in cult film
Diner.
In 1984 he landed the role of Ren McCormack in Footloose.
Despite the fame
Footloose brought, Kevin soon found himself typecast and decided to reinvent himself as a character actor in order to work with A-list directors.
In 1994 he earned his first Golden Globe nomination for
The River Wild with
Meryl Streep and in 1995 he starred in the blockbuster hit
Apollo 13.
He went on to begin producing films and
in 2010 won his first Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for his work on the HBO miniseries Taking Chances. Since 2012 Kevin has appeared in major advertising across Britain for the mobile network EE.
The adverts play on the trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon which is 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 associations with Kevin.
In 1988 Kevin met and married Kyra Sedgwick. The couple are still married and have two children; Travis and Sosie.