The “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” is a fun pop culture game that reveals how closely connected actors are to prolific Hollywood star Kevin Bacon It assigns each actor a “Bacon number” based on their degree of separation from him, But who has the highest Bacon number in Hollywood and how is it calculated? Let’s dig in!
Understanding Kevin Bacon Numbers
In 1994, students at Albright College coined the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” It centers on the idea that Kevin Bacon has worked with so many actors that he’s no more than six degrees separated from anyone in Hollywood.
Here’s how it works:
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Kevin Bacon himself has a Bacon number of 0.
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Actors who have worked directly with Kevin Bacon in a movie have a Bacon number of 1.
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Actors who have worked with someone who has a Bacon number of 1 have a Bacon number of 2, and so on.
The higher the Bacon number, the further away the actor’s working relationship is to Kevin Bacon
This stems from the “six degrees of separation” theory that everyone on earth is six or fewer introductions away from any other person. Bacon numbers beautifully showcase this concept within the acting world.
Who Has the Highest Known Bacon Number?
While most prolific Hollywood actors have a Bacon number under 3, the actor cited most often for having the highest Bacon number is William Rufus Shafter at 10 degrees!
Shafter may not be a household name like Kevin Bacon, but he holds the coveted highest Bacon number title.
So who is William Rufus Shafter and how did he score this honor?
Shafter was a military leader who served the Union in the American Civil War. He lived from 1835 to 1906 and appeared as himself in the 1898 silent film “Surrender of General Toral.”
Tracing Shafter’s acting connections through over a century of films eventually leads to his Bacon number of 10, when linked to Kevin Bacon through the 2002 movie “24 Hours.”
Let’s break down William Rufus Shafter’s degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon:
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Shafter appeared in “Surrender of General Toral” (1898) with Joseph Wheeler.
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Joseph Wheeler appeared in a 1898 film with Russell Alexander Alger.
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Russell Alexander Alger appeared in a 1898 film with William McKinley.
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William McKinley appeared in a 1901 film with Nelson Miles.
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Nelson Miles appeared in a 1914 film with William F. Cody.
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William F. Cody acted in a 1910 film with Major Gordon W. “Pawnee Bill” Lillie.
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Pawnee Bill acted in a 1914 film with Wheeler Oakman.
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Wheeler Oakman appeared in a 1938 film with Jerry Gardner.
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Jerry Gardner acted in “Natural Born Killers” (1994) with Pruitt Taylor Vince.
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Pruitt Taylor Vince appeared in “24 Hours” (2002) with Kevin Bacon!
And there you have it – the highest Bacon number belongs to William Rufus Shafter at 10 degrees. He may not be a famous actor, but he’s cemented his place in pop culture trivia through this fun connection.
Other Notable High Bacon Numbers
While Shafter’s 10-degree connection is cited most often, he’s not the only actor floating in the higher Bacon number echelons.
Here are a few other examples of notable actors with high Bacon numbers:
- Eric Roberts: 8
- John Gielgud: 8
- Kirk Douglas: 7
- Mickey Rooney: 7
- Peter O’Toole: 7
- Christopher Lee: 7
- Eli Wallach: 6
The average Bacon number for prolific Hollywood actors tends to fall between 1 and 3. But exceptions like Shafter and Roberts reveal just how far the Six Degrees concept can stretch when linking obscure early films to modern actors.
Connecting Film History Through Degrees
Part of the appeal of Bacon numbers is seeing how they link completely unrelated movies and actors over decades.
To connect Shafter in 1898 to Kevin Bacon in 2002, the degrees zigzag across film history through silent films, 1930s dramas, and 1990s blockbusters.
This demonstrates how the evolution of Hollywood is tied together through six degrees of separation between actors and movies. Even though early film stars aren’t household names today, they’re still linked to modern actors we all know.
Bacon numbers reveal connections between the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Boris Karloff, and Shirley Temple to today’s stars. And since degrees are constantly being discovered, there may be higher Bacon numbers waiting to be unveiled.
A Lasting Pop Culture Fascination
Thanks to the Six Degrees concept, Kevin Bacon left a lasting imprint on pop culture trivia. The game has inspired books, board games, and talk show discussions about actors’ Bacon numbers.
It’s even become a staple of movie trivia nights at bars, with patrons testing their degrees of separation knowledge.
And with new actors constantly entering Hollywood, the ever-evolving Bacon numbers give pop culture enthusiasts an endless web of connections to analyze.
So next time you play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, remember William Rufus Shafter’s impressive 10-degree connection. It’s a testament to early Hollywood’s lingering impact and the fascinating web that links actors over decades.
Center of the Hollywood UniverseWhisper it, but there isn’t really anything special (in this context) about Kevin Bacon — bar his name’s happy resemblance to the word “separation”.
Most likely, anyone who has lived in Hollywood for a while will be able to connect their own Ground Zero to a similar web of expanding links. A few important things stand out: acting in big groups or with people who have acted with a lot of other people is a quick way to make a lot of close connections. Long-term, featuring in a diverse range of productions will broaden the web of possible links.
Certainly, the most connected person in acting is not Mr Bacon. Research by people who found it important enough to do so discovered that the “Center of the Hollywood Universe” shifts over time — but typically it will be someone who has appeared in many, many films over a considerable period. During the latter part of his long life and prolific career, for instance, Christopher Lee was credited on IMDb as being this. As of July 2023, the center of the Hollywood universe
has shifted to Samuel L. Jackson, who with a mean score of 2.89828 degrees of separation is fractionally more closely linked to everyone else on average than Eric Roberts is, by a mere 0.0041 degrees. Bacon himself isnt even all that high on the list, typically ranking among the top 600 centers of the Hollywood universe but a fair way behind the likes of, say, Christian Slater, Vinnie Jones, Gary Busey or Diane Keaton.
Fun fact: if someone acts with someone whose heyday is very different from their own, they will instantly be linked to a bunch of actors from decades before or after their own, with only one or two degrees of separation. In 1960, Buster Keaton starred in a late-life version of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” with child actress Patty McCormack. McCormack later starred with Nixon in “Frost/Nixon” 48 years later. Kevin Bacon, giving Keaton a Bacon Number of just 2. In 1989 Bacon starred in The Big Picture, in which he appeared with June Lockhart (b. 1925), who made her film debut in A Christmas Carol (1938), which featured Lionel Braham (b. 1879) as the Ghost of Christmas Present. note (Plus an uncredited Halliwell Hobbes, b. 1877. ) Lockharts most recent credited film role was in 2016; Brahams first was in 1915. Bacon played the father of 10-year-old Alexis Rae Forlenza in the 2023 movie Leave The World Behind. Forlenza was born in The New 10s, making her only three degrees of separation from actors born in the 1870s. !.
Average Bacon NumberResearchers have demonstrated (true story!) that almost everyone has a Bacon Number less than 10, due to Kevin Bacon at one point or another appearing in movies with people who’ve appeared in movies with people who’ve appeared in movies (… etc.) with people who’ve appeared in, mathematically speaking, almost every film on the planet. The Oracle of Bacon claims that 21 persons on TMDB have Bacon Numbers of 10, the highest listed, but does not say who they are.
The most interesting fact is that the average Bacon Number for every person in the database, no matter how unknown, is just under 3. 1. When you stop to think about it, though, it quickly becomes apparent why.
Since the beginning of his career many years ago, Kevin Bacon has been in over 2100 different movies with different co-stars, which means everyone who had even a small part in the movie. They all have a Bacon Number of 1, even if they’ve never shared a scene with him.
And those two thousand people are connected to two hundred thousand other actors who have worked in movies with at least one of them but not with Bacon himself. Each of these people has a Bacon Number of 2. Then at one step further removed, there are over 680,000 actors who have at some point appeared alongside one (or more) of those #2s although never alongside a #1 or Bacon himself, making a B. N. of 3 tremendously common.
Now heres the interesting bit. Beyond that, since the possible routes back to Bacon increase exponentially, the number of people with a B. N. of 4 immediately drops sharply to back around the 250,000 mark. and at a B. N. of 5 it drops to just 32,000, then to just over 5,000, and finally to less than a thousand people. Because naturally, once you’ve found about a million more actors with close ties and mapped out every path between them, it quickly becomes almost impossible for a movie actor to have never worked with anyone in the business who has ever worked with anyone who has worked with anyone who has worked with Kevin.
Ironically, Kevin Bacon did not have anything at all to do with the movie Six Degrees of Separation. Note: Donald Sutherland was in that movie, and he was also in Animal House with Kevin Bacon. This means that Six Degrees of Separation is only two degrees away from Kevin Bacon!
This is all just a silly game, of course. Yet those mathematics associated with it have genuine real-world implications — see the bottom of this page.
Kevin Bacon Plays “Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon”
FAQ
Who has a high Bacon number?
Who has a Bacon number of 1?
Who has a Bacon number of 0?
Does anyone have a Bacon number of 6?
Who has the highest Bacon number?
Technically, multiple people can share the highest “Bacon number.” However, the best-known and most frequently cited example is William Rufus Shafter with a Bacon number of 10. Table of Contents Who is Kevin Bacon? Kevin Bacon is an American actor known for his prolific film and TV career. Born in 1958, he has over 100 acting credits to his name.
What is the Bacon number of an actor?
The Bacon number of an actor is the number of degrees of separation they have from Kevin Bacon. This concept is defined by the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. The higher the Bacon number, the greater the separation from Kevin Bacon the actor is.
What are Kevin Bacon numbers?
The Kevin Bacon numbers system, better known as “the six degrees of Kevin Bacon” is a cultural phenomenon that describes how close one’s working relationship is with Hollywood actor, Kevin Bacon. The higher the number, the further away the relationship is while still being linked. Technically, multiple people can share the highest “Bacon number.”
Are there any actors with high Bacon numbers?
However, there are still actors with relatively high Bacon Numbers that are worth noting. One such actor is Fred Ott, who acted in only two films and is the only actor in each of them.