Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

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The trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is based on a variation of the concept of the small world phenomenon and states that any actor can be linked, through their film roles, to Kevin Bacon. The game requires a group of players to try to connect any film actor in history to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible and in as few links as possible. The game was played across various college campuses as early as the early 1990s. Its name is a pun on the stage play Six Degrees of Separation.

Contents 1 History 2 The concept 3 The Center of the Hollywood Universe 4 Undefined Bacon numbers 5 Variations of the game 5.1 Forward linking 5.2 Backward linking 5.3 Bi-directional linking 5.4 Distant links 5.5 Games not using Kevin Bacon 6 Photography book 7 Notes 8 See also 9 External links

[edit] History

The game was invented in 1994 by Craig Fass, Brian Turtle and Mike Ginelli while they were students at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. They were watching television when a commercial for Bacon's most recent film The Air Up There came on and led to a discussion about his film career and the wide variety of actors he had thus so far worked with. According to Turtle, the title of the game was suggested by a producer on The Jon Stewart Show when the students made an appearance demonstrating the concept.^[1][2]

Kevin Bacon himself in a 1994 Premiere interview for the film The River Wild, while talking about his fame and career, comments that he's worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them. In the episode titled "Bacon and Eggs" of NBC's Will & Grace, Kevin Bacon makes a guest appearance, playing himself. During this episode, he makes a very obvious reference to the game when talking with Will (played by Eric McCormack):

Will: You— you did a movie with Val Kilmer?

Kevin: No, but Val was in Top Gun with Tom Cruise, and Tom was in A Few Good Men with me. Huh, that was a short one.

Bacon also appeared in a commercial for the Visa check card that parodied the game. In the commercial, Bacon wants to write a check to buy a book, but the clerk asks for his ID and he doesn't have it. He leaves and returns with a group of people, then says to the clerk, "Okay, I was in a movie with an extra, Eunice, whose hairdresser, Wayne, attended Sunday school with Father O'Neill, who plays racquetball with Dr. Sanjay, who recently removed the appendix of Kim, who dumped you sophomore year. So you see, we're practically brothers."

[edit] The concept

The concept is simple, but finding the smallest number of links can be difficult. The way you link an actor with Bacon is like so:

• Pick any film actor in history.
• Link the actor you've chosen to Bacon via the films they've shared with other actors until you end up with Kevin Bacon himself.

Here is an example, using Elvis Presley:

1. Elvis Presley was in Change of Habit (1969) with Edward Asner
2. Edward Asner was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon

Therefore Elvis Presley has a Bacon number of 2.

The game has expanded to become more about linking two film actors than just one actor to Kevin Bacon. The name is still retained, however.^{[citation needed]}

The concept was also presented in an episode of the TV show, Mad About You. They were explaining that every actor is only 3 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

[edit] The Center of the Hollywood Universe

This section documents mercurial information. Information is subject to change rapidly by its very nature. Please confirm current information with other sources.

While at the University of Virginia, Brett Tjaden created the Oracle of Bacon, a computer program that uses information on some 800,000 people from the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). The algorithm calculates "how good a center"[1] an individual IMDB personality is, i.e. a weighted average of the degree of separation of all the people that link to that particular person. The site returns an average personality number, i.e. for Clint Eastwood, it returns an average "Clint Eastwood Number". From there the Oracle site posits "The Center of the Hollywood Universe" as being that person with the lowest average personality number. Notably, Kevin Bacon himself is not The Center of the Hollywood Universe, i.e. the most linkable actor. In fact, Bacon does not even make the top 1000 list of average personality numbers.^[3] Since average personality numbers are dynamic (mercurial) and can change with each new film made, the Center can and does shift. At one time, that honor went to Rod Steiger but at the time of this writing, he has been surpassed by Dennis Hopper and Donald Sutherland, if not others. Karen Black is the highest ranked actress in the list. James Earl Jones is the highest ranked non-caucasian actor in the list.

[edit] Undefined Bacon numbers

Few actors have an undefined (or infinite) Bacon number, meaning that they cannot be linked to Bacon in any number of connections at all. According to the Oracle of Kevin Bacon website, approximately 12% of all actors cannot be linked to Bacon using their criteria. [2]

[edit] Variations of the game

The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game sometimes fails to model the real world as it allows both forward and backward linkings. Very frequently, only one kind of linking is allowed between two nodes.

[edit] Forward linking

For example, the spreading of any virus is forward in time. If John Doe catches a virus on Monday, Jane Doe, who only had contact with him two days before that could not get the virus because of her previous contact with John. However if she came into contact with him after she may contract the virus.

For John Doe to transmit the virus to Jane Doe, it may require following steps:

John Doe → Jack (3 days later) → Tom (3 days later) → Jane Doe (3 days later)

[edit] Backward linking

[edit] Bi-directional linking

Anyone with a Bacon number of 2 could not have a link of both forward and backward steps. However, with many people who died long ago, pure backward linking is simply impossible, if the use of stock footage is ruled out. For example, John F. Kennedy, who died in 1963 could not be performing with anyone after 1975, Bacon's first TV appearance, or 1978, his first film appearance.

• Shortest Path from JFK to Bacon (A)

1. John F. Kennedy was in Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination (1963) with Jean Hill
2. Jean Hill was in Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy (1992) with Gary Oldman
3. Gary Oldman was in Murder in the First (1995) with Kevin Bacon

• 1963 → 1992 → 1995 (forward steps)

• Shortest Path from JFK to Bacon (B)

1. John F. Kennedy was in Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination (1963) with Jean Hill
2. Jean Hill was in Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy (1992) with Edward Asner
3. Edward Asner was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon

• 1963 → 1992 ← 1991 (bi-directional steps, backward steps impossible)

[edit] Distant links

Elsa Masriera has a Bacon number of 7, if bi-directional links are allowed.

• Shortest Path from Elsa Masriera to Kevin Bacon (A)

1. Elsa Masriera was in Madre sin saberlo (1927) with Mercedes Olivares
2. Mercedes Olivares was in Bajo dos banderas (1926) with Edmundo Fuenzalida
3. Edmundo Fuenzalida was in Los Cascabeles de Arlequin (1926) with Placido Martin
4. Placido Martin was in Suena mi amor (1946) with Chela Bon
5. Chela Bon was in Curse of the Stone Hand (1964) with John Carradine
6. John Carradine was in The Sentinel (1977) with Eli Wallach
7. Eli Wallach was in Mystic River (2003) with Kevin Bacon

• 1927 ← 1926 → 1926 → 1946 → 1964 → 1977 → 2003 (bi-directional)

• Shortest Path from Elsa Masriera to Kevin Bacon (B)

1. Elsa Masriera was in Madre sin saberlo (1927) with Mercedes Olivares
2. Mercedes Olivares was in Bajo dos banderas (1926) with Edmundo Fuenzalida
3. Edmundo Fuenzalida was in Los Cascabeles de Arlequin (1926) with Placido Martin
4. Placido Martin was in El Ultimo galope (1951) with Yoya Martinez
5. Yoya Martinez was in "Marron Glace, el regreso" (1996) with Walter Kliche
6. Walter Kliche was in The Lawless Land (1988) with Xander Berkeley
7. Xander Berkeley was in Apollo 13 (1995) with Kevin Bacon

• 1927 ← 1926 → 1926 → 1951 → 1996 ← 1988 → 1995 (bi-directional)

[edit] Games not using Kevin Bacon

A common variation of the game can be found where players must link one actor to another via a common movie. This has been dubbed, quite simply, as 'The Movie Game' a multiplayer example of this can be found on Filtered Reality's 'freedom' website. (frfreedom.com)

[edit] Photography book

Inspired by the game, the British photographer Andy Gotts tried to reach Bacon through photographic links instead of film links.

He wrote to 300 actors asking to take their pictures, and received permission from one, Joss Ackland. Ackland then suggested that Gotts photograph Greta Scacchi, with whom he had appeared in the film White Mischief. Gotts proceeded from there, asking each actor to refer him to one or more friends or colleagues. Eventually, Christian Slater referred him to Bacon. Gotts's photograph of Bacon completed the project, eight years after it began. Gotts published the photos in a book, Degrees (ISBN 0-9546843-6-2), with text by Alan Bates, Pierce Brosnan, and Bacon. [3]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ http://www.msnbc.com/onair/nbc/dateline/KBacon/Kevin.asp
2. ^ http://www.cs.virginia.edu/misc/news-bacon.html courtesy copies at the U Virginia Bacon site
3. ^ http://oracleofbacon.org/center_list.html The Center of the Hollywood Universe: Note that the order and parenthetical average personality numbers are not current but reflect when the page was created or last updated. accessed 2006-10-11

[edit] See also

• SixDegrees.org, building on the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to create a charitable social network.
• Bacon numbers for a lot more information on Bacon numbers and how to calculate them.
• Erdős-Bacon numbers for a mathematician's further extension of this game.
• Movie Game, another game relating to actors and films
• Small world phenomenon
• Six Degrees of Wikipedia

[edit] External links

• The Oracle of Bacon, with an automated Bacon calculator provided by the University of Virginia
• Band To Band, links any band to any other band using albums, similar to the Kevin Bacon game
• Cinema FreeNet Movie Connector finds links between film stars, and can also use directors and producers. (Note: Only current through 1/31/99, according to its Database Info page.)
• Omnipelagos, finds the shortest (or most obscure) paths between any two terms in the Wikipedia.
• Six degrees tool - Finds the shortest path between any two Wikipedia articles in the main namespace using wiki links. The source is also available.
• The Oracle of Kasparov - shows the shortest path by which a chess player beats Kasparov.
• Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg - Suggests that Bacon connects to many actors because he acts in many different kinds of roles and films.
• The Oracle of Music- a site that connects artists in the musical universe