Kevin Bacon: Dancing in the hallway

Kevin Bacon dancing in the 1984 movie "Footloose".

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/sep/22/kevin-bacon-i-turned-down-

dancing-to-footloose-dressed-as-an-mm-my-wife-doesnt-like-it-when-food-talks

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It was something I had wanted to do for awhile. I had seen Kevin Bacon dance down this hallway from one end to another in clips from “Footloose”. He looked so cool.

So, one day in my first year of university in the Fall of 1987, I came back from class and there was no one around. I looked around to make sure.

My room was at one end of the hall, so I started humming “Footloose” and started dancing down the hall, banging off the walls, and doing leg kicks in the air until I hit the fire escape door at the other end of the hall. Then I did the same thing back to my room.

No one ever saw me.

Before the “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon”, there was just Kevin Bacon. It was during the 1980s that he began to make all those movies that connect him to the entire world.

His name came across my news feed the other day. It got me thinking back to when it all really started, and that iconic movie with him dancing in the hallway.

Prelude to a hit
For Kevin Bacon in the ‘80s, it all really begins and ends  with “Footloose”.

He had built himself a resumé by the time he got that role though. He made his big screen debut as Chip Diller in “National Lampoon’s Animal House” in 1978; then had roles in “Starting Over”; “Hero at Large”; “Friday the 13th”; “Only When I Laugh”; “Diner”; “Forty Deuce”; and “Enormous Changes at the Last Minute”.

He was also on television quite a bit with roles in “Search for Tomorrow”; “The Gift”; “Guiding Light”; “The Demon Murder Case”; and “Mister Roberts”.

Dancing in the hallway
Everything changed for Kevin Bacon in 1984 when he played Ren McCormack in “Footloose”. It tells the story of a town that has dancing banned, through the efforts of an overzealous minister, played by John Lithgow. McCormack comes along to lead the charge against that.

The movie was just as well-known for its soundtrack which produced hit after hit after hit. It started with “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins; “Let’s Hear it for the Boy”, by Deniece Williams; “Holding Out for a Hero”, by Bonnie Tyler; “Almost Paradise” by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno; and “Dancing in the Sheets” by Shalamar.

My first exposure to the movie was clips from the music videos, and shows that reviewed the movie.

I didn’t see it until later, but it did not disappoint.

Bicycle built for Bacon
Kevin Bacon’s next movie, “Quicksilver”, came out in 1986. I had seen a brief clip on “Entertainment Tonight” at the end of the year. It focused as much on the song “Quicksilver Lightning”, recorded by Roger Daltry for the movie, as the movie itself.

I ended up renting it one Friday night with my best friend Chris Vining after we finished a shift at the greenhouse we both worked at. Bacon plays a stockbroker who quits his job to become a bike messenger.

It had some moments I distinctly remember. At one point, he is explaining his job and the new sense of freedom it gives him. He said, “If someone tells me to go west, I go east.”

At another point, he is having a disagreement with his dad, played by Gerald S. O’Laughlin. He tells his dad that when he was stressed out and didn’t know what to do with his life, his dad offered to make him a sandwich. Maybe he was something other than hungry at the time?

Rest of the decade
Bacon finished out the 1980s with the movies “White Water Summer” and “End of the Line” in 1987; a part as a taxi racer in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”, also in 1987; “She’s Having a Baby” in 1988; and “The Big Picture” in 1989.

I haven’t seen any of these movies, but I did see his final movie of the decade – “Criminal Law” in 1989.

It is a legal thriller that features Bacon and Gary Oldman. Oldman plays a win-at-all-costs defence attorney who gets a rich kid, played by Bacon, acquitted of murder, only to have the rich kid kill again. he retains the lawyer to defend him, even before he is charged.

I recall going to this movie in the theatre, likely with my friend Roy, who lived across the hall from me in my first year of university. Thankfully he didn’t see me dance in the hallway, because I blew right past his room. I distinctly recall “Criminal Law” had a lot of scenes at night that I found hard to follow.

The years after
Kevin Bacon really made a name for himself in the years after the close of the ‘80s appearing in a lot of great movies. They included “Tremors”; “Flatliners”; “He Said, She Said”; “A Few Good Men”; “The Air Up There”; “The River Wild”, where he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture; “Murder in the First”; “Apollo 13”; “Sleepers”; “Picture Perfect”; “Mystic River”; “Frost/Nixon”; “X-Men: First Class”; “Crazy, Stupid Love”; “R.I.P.D.”; “The Toxic Avenger”; “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F”; and many, many more.

He was also in a television movie called “Taking a Chance”. He played a lieutenant colonel in the United States Marines, who accompanies the remains of a Marine killed in the Iraq War back to his hometown. He won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television, and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie.

Bacon received another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Television Series Comedy or Musical for his role in the TV series “I Love Dick”.

In 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Parting thoughts
The whole game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” stems from the fact Kevin Bacon has been such a prolific actor in so many roles in movies and television.

I have enjoyed him in many of those roles yet, for me, it all started with “Footloose”, and Kevin Bacon dancing down a hallway.