BACON TURNS "DEGREES" INTO A GAME OF GIVING

by Karen Thomas
USA TODAY

Kevin Bacon has a confession.

That silly Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game? The truth is, he's no good at it.

"It's confusing," he admits. "I can't remember all the movies I've been in, so I surely can't recall someone else's films." The object of the game is to connect any famous person to Bacon within six steps.

Finally, after a decade of living with the Six Degrees curse ("I always thought it would just go away, along with the Pet Rock"), Bacon has discovered a way to make the phenomenon rise above being an annoying gimmick.

A year ago, he bought the domain name SixDegrees.org. This weekend, the actor was scheduled to be at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, to launch SixDegrees.org, an online charitable-giving site that is inspired by his namesake game and driven by today's obsession with celebrities.

A roster of A-listers, including Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Tyra Banks, Jessica Simpson and Kanye West, have signed on to be included in the online network, where users can find out about a favorite celeb's charitable work and make online donations to that cause. Users can collect celebrity "badges" and attach the interactive icon to their outgoing e-mail, Web page or blog, thus creating the connections with potential to grow exponentially.

Also, site visitors can create their own badges, which will link to their favorite charity. Bacon says he will personally match the donations (up to $10,000) of the first six users to create a badge.

"People pick up celebrity magazines to see how people dress, which handbags are hot, which cars to buy," Bacon says. "Why not look at what (celebrities) care about?"

Bacon says he started his recruiting journey with his agent and celebs he knew personally. (Wife Kyra Sedgwick naturally signed on first.) Kidman and Jane Kaczmarek were among early players and, in the past week, West and the band Incubus jumped on board.

And because Bacon has been on the celeb side of giving, he says he "wanted it to be as simple as possible" for stars to join. "I would like it to become the type of thing where (celebrities) say (to each other), "How come you're not on there?' "

To create his social network, Bacon teamed up with the nonprofit group Network for Good, AOL and Sundance sponsors Entertainment Weekly. But long before the corporate players stepped in, Bacon says he was inspired by Paul Newman's salad dressing.

Newman "took this simple idea — he likes to cook — and hundreds of millions of dollars later, he has this fantastic thing," Bacon says of the legendary actor's charitable line of foods. So Bacon says he asked himself, "What do I have that's not salad dressing?' The thing that I am most connected to is this game," says Bacon, who says he has fielded thousands of questions about the Six Degrees game.

Who's on board?

Kevin Bacon's friends represent a variety of charities on his Web site, SixDegrees.org. Among the early participants:

Kyra Sedgwick (Natural Resources Defense Council).

Nicole Kidman (UNIFEM).

Tyra Banks (Tyra Banks TZONE Foundation).

Ashley Judd (YouthAIDS).

Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek (Clothes Off Our Back).

Dana Delany (Scleroderma Research Foundation).

Jessica Simpson (Operation Smile).

Will Ferrell (Cancer for College).

Kanye West (Kanye West Foundation)

Among stars who have agreed to be involved:

Robert Duvall.

Incubus.

Lili Taylor.

Rosie O'Donnell.

Colin Firth.

Jennifer Love Hewitt.