UPDATE
Apr 22, 2024 1:30 AM CDT
Kevin Bacon on Saturday fulfilled his promise to students at Utah's Payson High School—where he filmed Footloose four decades ago—when he showed up on campus on prom day. "It's been a long time—40 years—that just blows my mind, you know," the actor said in a speech to students. "Things look a little different around here. I'd say the thing that looks the most different is me." Students worked together to create 5,000 "essential resource kits" for Bacon's nonprofit foundation, SixDegrees.org, which provides them to communities in need, ABC4 reports.
Mar 25, 2024 7:21 AM CDT
According to Bacon's Law, aka the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, every Hollywood actor can be tied to the 65-year-old Bacon within just six steps. Students in Utah are about to narrow that status for themselves by one degree, after Bacon, in tandem with the movie's 40th anniversary, agreed to visit the high school where his cult classic Footloose was filmed in the early '80s.
- Backstory: Utah's Payson High School was where Bacon's Ren McCormack shows up in the movie and tries to overturn a local ban on dancing. Today notes that the specter of Bacon and the movie still floats around the school, including with a locker dedicated to him that a reporter describes as a "time capsule."