I have always been fascinated with the practice of drawing connections; between people, between places and experiences. I am sure you have heard the statistical quasi-fact that every person in the world is connected through six or less acquaintances, and certainly you’ve heard of the “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, where movie trivia buffs can connect any film actor with actor Kevin Bacon through a chain of six actors or less. An old girlfriend of mine was obsessed with this phenomenon, and for most of the time that we dated she drug a beaten and frayed copy of Leonard Maltin’s Movie guide around with her, constantly scouring it for obscure films with which to connect virtually any actor with Kevin Bacon. In fact, she once claimed that anyone who needed a string of Six actors to connect someone to Mr. Bacon was a rank amateur, and declared that she could do it in three steps or less. My friends and I used to try and stump her by dredging up the most unlikely and remote actors we could think of- “How about Bella lugosi” we would say, or “I bet you can’t do Charlie Chaplin”. Invariably we would be proven wrong, and she would make the connection through three or fewer films, often without even having to refer to her book.

Given your immense volume of work in film, it is, of course, absurdly easy to make the connection from you to Kevin Bacon (You both appeared, evidently, in “Murder in the First”- Thank you IMDB), and I guarantee that if I were to ask that ex girlfriend she could probably come up with a dozen more connections, all within 3 steps.

The reason I bring this up has nothing at all in fact to do with Kevin Bacon, although it called that concept to mind, is that your recent stories these last few weeks kept prompting something in my brain, and today I realized what it was- you actually attended The University of Illinois in Champaign at the same time as a friend of mine was teaching there (as far as I can ascertain). Of course I know it is probably unlikely that you ever attended one of his classes, I’m not even sure if you were in the same department, as he is a Dancer by profession, still, it making the connection pleases me in some way, and it is certainly possible that you may have attended the same performance at some time. His name is Peter Franklin-white (or simply “Franklin White” when on stage). He taught there from 1969 until 1977. You might remember him as a pleasant old Englishman, a veteran of the Royal Ballet, who taught classes in mime, stage combat and choreography as far as I understand.

Besides the Illinois connection, I guess there is also the fact that he tells such wonderful stories that made me think of him while listening to your podcast recently. Although he is fully 55 years my senior, he has a way of telling a tale that often bridges that gap with the same mixture of wisdom, humor, and understanding of the basic human condition that you exhibit each week.  And if, by some chance, the 2 of you met while in Champaign, I’ve just drawn a link from me to the great character actor Stephen Tobolowsky in one step. That’s kinda cool, I guess.