Six degrees of Eric Roberts:
Over 20 years ago, it was discovered that every actor in Hollywood was linked to Kevin Bacon by six shared film experiences or less. The phenomenon became known as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and several interesting connections were discovered as its popularity grew. For example, Elvis Presley has a Bacon number of 2 (2 degrees of separation): Presley appeared in Change of Habit with Edward Asner, who shared the screen with Bacon in JFK. Bacon’s ubiquity and the popularity of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon led many to tag Bacon as the “Center of the Hollywood Universe”. Unfortunately, Bacon doesn’t actually have claim to that title, as there are even more connected actors in Hollywood.
According to Randy Olson and the article linked above, Kevin Bacon doesn’t even crack the top 100 candidates for best “Center of the Hollywood Universe”.
The real center is actually Eric Roberts, who has acted alongside over 8000 other people. Roberts is so connected that “1 in 4 of the 1.91 million actors on IMDb are within 2 degrees of separation from Eric Roberts” (Olson). The vast majority of Hollywood is only two degrees of separation from Roberts, earning him the title as “Center of the Hollywood Universe”. The graphs at the bottom detail the difference between between Roberts and Bacon.
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2017 ... hollywood/
