The Bacon number of an actor or actress is the number of degrees of separation (see Six degrees of separation) they have from actor Kevin Bacon, as defined by the game known as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The higher the Bacon number, the farther away from Kevin Bacon the actor is. The Bacon number of any actor or actress X can be determined by the following set of rules: This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Autographed photo of Kevin Bacon greeting a crowd at Jefferson Square in Columbia, South Carolina in October, 2006 while filming Death Sentence. ... The trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is based on a variation of the concept of the small world phenomenon which states that any actor can be linked, through their film roles, to Kevin Bacon. ...

• 0 if X is Kevin Bacon
• 1 + the lowest Bacon number of all of the actors/actresses who have appeared in a movie with X
• infinite/undefined if X cannot be connected to Kevin Bacon at all

This is an application of the Erdős number concept to the movie industry. There is also the related concept of Erdős-Bacon number, which is simply the sum of a person's Erdős number and Bacon number. The ErdÅ‘s number, honouring the late Hungarian mathematician Paul ErdÅ‘s, one of the most prolific writers of mathematical papers, is a way of describing the collaborative distance, in regard to mathematical papers, between an author and ErdÅ‘s. ... A persons ErdÅ‘s-Bacon number is the sum of their ErdÅ‘s number and their Bacon number. ...

Notably, Bacon is not the most linkable actor. According to the Oracle of Bacon site, that honour goes to Rod Steiger. The average Steiger number in the acting community is 2.679.^[1] By contrast, the average Bacon number is 2.946.^[2] The least linkable actor in Hollywood has an average number of 9.2. However, the Oracle of Bacon did not release his/her name. Rod Steiger (April 14, 1925 – July 9, 2002) was an American actor. ...

Notable Bacon numbers

• Fred Ott (Bacon number: infinite/undefined), who was the only actor in the only two films he was ever in. [1]

• Julian "H-dub" Milo (Bacon number: 1)
  • Julian Milo was in IHOP (1961) with Joseph Sterling.
  • Joseph Sterling was in Animal House (1978) with Kevin Bacon.

• Ronald Reagan (Bacon number: 2)
  • Ronald Reagan was in The Young Doctors (1961) with Eddie Albert.
  • Eddie Albert was in The Big Picture (1989) with Kevin Bacon.

• Adolf Hitler (3)
  • Adolf Hitler was in Der Ewige Jude (1940) with Curt Bois.
  • Curt Bois was in The Great Sinner (1949) with Kenneth Tobey.
  • Kenneth Tobey was in Hero at Large (1980) with Kevin Bacon.

• Pope John Paul II (4)
  • Pope John Paul II was in Padre Pio - Tra cielo e terra (2000) with Giovanni Lombardo Radice.
  • Giovanni Lombardo Radice was in Gangs of New York (2002) with Martin Scorsese.
  • Martin Scorsese was in Bringing Out the Dead (1999) with Arthur J. Nascarella.
  • Arthur J. Nascarella was in In the Cut (2003) with Kevin Bacon.

• Paul Erdős, who is the centre of a similar network for mathematicians, was believed to have a Bacon number of 4, due to his appearance as himself in the 1993 film N Is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős, but this is now believed to be in error due to a conflation of similarly named persons. Relaxing the definition of Bacon number to include crew, however, does yield a Bacon number of 3 for Erdős:
  • Paul Erdős was in N is a Number which had original music by Mark Adler.
  • Mark Adler provided music for The Rat Pack which co-starred Joe Mantegna.
  • Joe Mantegna was in Queens Logic with Kevin Bacon.

Fred Ott in mid-sneeze This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The Deltas in front of their house Movie poster of Animal House National Lampoons Animal House (also called Animal House) is a 1978 comedy film in which a misfit group of Delta fraternity boys takes on the system at their college. ... Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). ... Eddie Albert, born Edward Albert Heimberger, (April 22, 1906 – May 26, 2005) was a popular Oscar and Emmy Award-nominated American stage, film, character actor, gardener and humanitarian activist, perhaps best known for playing Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films. ... The Big Picture was a 1989 movie starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Christopher Guest. ... Hitler redirects here. ... The Eternal Jew is a 1940 anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film. ... Curt Bois (5 April 1901–25 December 1991) was a German actor. ... Kenneth Tobey (Born March 23, 1917—December 22, 2002) was an American television and film actor. ... Coat of Arms of Pope John Paul II. The Letter M is for Mary, the mother of Jesus, to whom he held strong devotion Pope John Paul II (Latin: ), (Italian: Giovanni Paolo II), born   (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005) reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from October 16... Giovanni Lombardo Radice (born 23 September 1954, Rome, Italy) is a film actor, better know to audiences as John Morghen. ... Gangs of New York is a 2002 film set in the middle 19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. ... Martin Luciano Scorsese (born November 17, 1942) is an acclaimed American film director. ... Bringing Out the Dead is a film released in 1999. ... In the Cut is a 2003 American/British/Australian crime/erotic thriller film written and directed by New Zealand director Jane Campion. ... Paul ErdÅ‘s also Pál ErdÅ‘s, in English Paul Erdos or Paul Erdös, (March 26, 1913 – September 20, 1996) was an immensely prolific (and famously eccentric) Hungarian mathematician who, with hundreds of collaborators, worked on problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set... The ErdÅ‘s number, honouring the late Hungarian mathematician Paul ErdÅ‘s, one of the most prolific writers of mathematical papers, is a way of describing the collaborative distance, in regard to mathematical papers, between an author and ErdÅ‘s. ... Paul ErdÅ‘s also Pál ErdÅ‘s, in English Paul Erdos or Paul Erdös, (March 26, 1913 – September 20, 1996) was an immensely prolific (and famously eccentric) Hungarian mathematician who, with hundreds of collaborators, worked on problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set... The Rat Pack was a 1998 HBO TV movie about the Rat Pack. ... Joe Mantegna as Detective Will Girardi in Joan of Arcadia Joe Mantegnas character, Fat Tony in The Simpsons Joseph Anthony Mantegna, Jr. ... Joe Mantegna as Detective Will Girardi in Joan of Arcadia Joe Mantegnas character, Fat Tony in The Simpsons Joseph Anthony Mantegna, Jr. ...

External links

• The Oracle of Bacon at the University of Virginia computes the Bacon number of any actor or actress from IMDb data
• Cinema FreeNet Movie Connector finds links between stars, but can also use directors and producers.

Notes and references