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Within his generation, there probably isn't another actor as iconic as Kevin Bacon. Born on July 8, 1958, this Pennsylvania native has been acting professionally since 1977. Acting came as an early passion for Bacon who was convinced that he was called to the profession ever since he won a full scholarship to the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts at Bucknell University summer academy for students who were naturally gifted in the arts.
This experience lit the spark that would ignite Bacon's star power, sharing the big screen with Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Elizabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, James McAvoy, and Rose Byrne to name a few. Due to his prolific career and determination for acting excellence, he received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003. Despite never receiving an Academy Award nomination, Bacon is recognized as one of the best actors of his time and sits on a net worth of $45 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Guided By Passion
Young, ambitious, and independent, the Philadelphia dreamer left home at the age of 17 and headed to the Circle in the Square Theater School in New York led by nothing but pure passion and the will to succeed. He always believed that "art and expression are next to godliness" which was the driving motivation behind why he chose to be an actor in the entertainment industry. Similar to Robert Duvall and Christopher Walken, Bacon first entered the theatre where he found some success and gained some experience, but things didn't turn over for him as fast as he'd like.
Still in the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, New York City, his acting debut came in the fraternity comedy film, National Lampoon's Animal House of 1978 which also starred Donald Sutherland and John Belushi, grossing $141 million against a $3 million budget. Although the film was a success, it didn't bring the Tremors star overnight success. For the next two years, he auditioned for roles in theater and waited tables to support himself, eventually landing a brief role in two soap operas, Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow.
Then in 1980, he appeared in the slasher film Friday The 13th, which grossed $59.8 million. Simultaneously, he landed a few more stage performances, one for which he won an Obie Award in 1982 for his role in Forty Duece. He would then make his Broadway debut in The Slab Boys Trilogy, starring beside Hollywood giants Sean Penn and Val Kilmer. However, he gained considerable recognition from fellow actors and film critics alike with his role in Barry Levinson's Diner. The attention he garnered would be the launching pad for his next major film, Footloose (1984), starring Dianne Wiest and John Lithgow. His later 1980s films included John Hughes' She's Having A Baby and a comedy starring Jennifer Jason Leigh titled The Big Picture.
Bringing Home The Bacon
Bacon started off the 1990s by starring in the comedy/horror film, Tremors, opposite Fred Ward and Reba McEntire. In the same year, he starred in Joel Schumacher psychological horror Flatliners which went on to gross $61.5 million at the box office. His following film came in 1991 in the romantic comedy-drama, He Said, She Said, starring Sharon Stone and Elizabeth Perkins which ended up being a flop. Next was the political thriller JFK, starring Kevin Costner and Gary Oldman, in which Bacon played the role of a gay prostitute. One of the greatest films of his acting resume came in 1992 with A Few Good Men, a legal drama starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson which grossed $243 million at the box office.
He returned to his first love, theater, for a few years before coming back to the big screen with heavy-hitters like Murder In The First (1995); the blockbuster hit Apollo 13 starring actor and philanthropist Tom Hanks and Ed Harris that grossed a whopping $355 million, and Sleepers where he played a dark character besides the Hollywood bad boy Brad Pitt and Robert De Niro. A few other successful films of the '90s included Picture Perfect (1997), Wild Things starring Matt Dillon, and Stir of Echoes (1999).
Kevin's Journey Since The 2000s
Acting in the theater must've kept Kevin Bacon vibrant because the 2000s onward were some of his best years in acting. He again played a villainous role in the 2000 science fiction thriller Hollow Man which grossed $190 million. He also acted in Mystic River, a 2003 neo-noir crime film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Sean Penn, Laurence Fishburne, and Laura Linney. The film went on to gross $156.6 million worldwide. He went on to win a Golden Globe Award for his role in the HBO Films production Taking Chance written by an American War Veteran named Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl. His next big role would be in X-Men: First Class where he played a mutant villain named Sebastian Shaw, which grossed $353 million at the box office.
In 2011, Kevin and his wife, actress Kyra Sedgewick, purchased a home in the Los Feliz community of Los Angeles, California for $2.5 million. According to Hello Magazine, the couple also owns a large New York City apartment as well as a 40-acre rural property in Sharon, Connecticut, fitted with all sorts of farm animals and lots of peace and quiet.
Sources: Hello Magazine, Spirituality and Practice, Celebrity Net Worth
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