“The town was very strict”: how a naked Kevin Bacon was almost chased out of Utah
Most actors would be thrilled at becoming a movie star overnight, but Kevin Bacon hated it so much that he almost ruined his career on purpose because of it, and things might have turned out differently had he been successfully chased out of Utah for violating small-town policies.
Even when he was breaking into the industry, he always envisioned himself as being a serious actor, which seemed counterproductive to his choices when two of his earliest roles were in the frat comedy Animal House and the slasher flick Friday the 13th.
In his mind, though, it was merely a way of getting his foot in the door. He was a working, professional actor, the very thing he’d been dreaming of, but the last thing he wanted to be was a celebrity. Unfortunately, when you play the lead role in a smash hit that leaves a cultural footprint and makes a fortune at the box office, that kind of thing is nigh-on unavoidable.
It may not jump out as such a movie, but Footloose could have dramatically altered the landscape of 1980s cinema. For one thing, Tom Cruise turned down the lead because he’d already committed to All the Right Moves, while Rob Lowe unsuccessfully auditioned three times for Ren McCormack, and Bacon rejected John Carpenter’s Christine to dance the night away instead.
The aftermath of the film’s resounding success saw Bacon make a solid attempt at running his professional life into the ground, but things may not have even reached that point in the first place had the town of Provo, Utah followed through on its opposition to the production, which saw some of the locals affronted by the Hollywood nonsense they were witnessing in their backyard.
One night, the younger cast members decided to blow off some steam with some illicit skinny-dipping. “We had to climb over a chain link fence to get into the pool,” Lori Singer recalled to The Daily Beast. “We were laughing and yelling, and somebody called the police. We had to get out of there as fast as we could and get back to our rooms before the police came.”
Even when the cameras were rolling, Footloose wasn’t safe. One scene involved Bacon and his buddies hanging out, partially clothed in a shower room, and when the local authorities caught wind of that, they threatened to kick the entire cast and crew out of Provo for daring to flout the town’s moral code.
“The town was very strict with very specific rules,” Singer explained. “They heard some of the boys were naked, and demanded to see the shot and know what was going on. For two or three days we were shut down, waiting to see what was going to happen.”
The moral of the story was that Provo was clearly not a place that condoned rebellious youths getting their kit off, whether it was for work or play. It was a tense few days that could have seen Footloose permanently exiled and forced to find a new shooting location at the last minute, but cooler heads ultimately prevailed.
