The Erdős Number measures how far you are from mathematician Paul Erdős via coauthoring academic papers*. The Bacon Number measures how far you are from actor Kevin Bacon via costarring in films.
In honour of the late Bill Paxton, I now propose The Paxton Number.
Bill Paxton has the totally-not-dubious honour of being killed, on screen, by The Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator.
See this compilation:
Paxton Number: Bill Paxton has a Paxton Number of Zero. Actors that have been killed on-screen by a monster who has also killed Bill Paxton, have a Paxton Number of 1. Anybody else’s number is m+1, where m is the lowest number of anyone else killed by the same monster. For every other actor, their Paxton Number is infinity.
Example:
Bill Paxton‘s Paxton Number is Zero, and he was killed by Predator in Predator 2.
Jesse Ventura‘s Paxton Number is 1, as he was killed by Predator in The Predator. He was also killed by Poison Ivy, as played by Uma Thurman, in Batman & Robin.
Ralf Moeller‘s Paxton Number is 2, as he was also killed by Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin. He was also killed by The Scorpion King, as played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in The Scorpion King.
Randy Couture‘s Paxton Number is 3, as he was also killed by The Scorpion King, this time played by Michael Copon, in The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior.
Other Notes:
The rule is based on the monster in the story, not the actor. So, we can’t count Paxton Number when actors are killed by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he plays Terminator equivalently to when he plays Conan the Barbarian – those are separate monsters.
Looking For:
There are several murderously profiling villains. Let’s find a finite Paxton Number for one of their victims and then we can give finite Paxton Numbers to whole swaths of people. They are:
– Magneto
– Godzilla
– Darth Vader
– Dracula
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Collab credit: Cian Cruise & Jan Streekska
Possibly useful resource: cinemorgue.wikia.com
*Fact: My Erdős Number is 4. Co-authorship via Ravin Balakrishnan; Michael Chi Hung Wu; Maria M. Klawe; Paul Erdős. co-authorship graph.