Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr.
12 min read
Reading time
2,313
Words
Published
121
Film credits
11
Awards
LeVar Burton first gained national attention in 1977 as Kunta Kinte in the miniseries Roots. He played Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987 and hosted Reading Rainbow in 1983. His work earned him four NAACP Image Awards, a Grammy, and the National Humanities Medal.
Names, aliases, and relatives of LeVar Burton — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
LeVar Burton by the numbers — life, work, and family.
LeVar Burton — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
LeVar Burton was born on February 16, 1957, in Landstuhl, Germany, where his father served as a U.S. Army NCO. At age 13, he entered a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood. After graduating from Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento in 1974, he studied at the USC School of Dramatic Arts.
Burton first gained national attention in 1977 playing Kunta Kinte in the miniseries Roots. In 1987, he began playing Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a character named after a fan with muscular dystrophy. He also hosted Reading Rainbow from 1983, even while working on Trek. He directed over two dozen episodes of various Star Trek series, more than any other Trek actor.
LeVar Burton married Stephanie Cozart Burton on October 3, 1992, the same day as Barack and Michelle Obama. They met during the filming of Roots: The Gift in 1988. His daughter, Mica Burton, earned a BFA in Theatre from the University of Michigan in 2016.
He brought Geordi La Forge to life for seven seasons and four films, and his work on Reading Rainbow inspired generations of young readers. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990 and the National Humanities Medal in 2021. He was named Grand Marshal of the 2022 Rose Parade.
The complete filmography of LeVar Burton — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by LeVar Burton — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from LeVar Burton — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
I Get Most of My News Updates from Electronic and Social Media.
If We Marry Educational Technology with Quality, Enriching Content, That’s a Circle of Win.
There Would Be No Star Trek Unless There Were Transporter Malfunctions.
As Long as We Are Engaged in Storytelling That Moves the Culture Forward, It Doesn’t Matter What Format It Is.
Because Storytelling, and Visual Storytelling, Was Put in the Hands of Everybody, and We Have All Now Become Storytellers.
I Have Always Been a Fan of ‘Star Trek.’ I Love Gene Roddenberry’s Vision of the Future.
We Had to Figure Out How to Produce Books in a Cost-effective Way.
This Wired Generation Is Kind of Cool.
It Is No Longer Appropriate for Me as an American to Sit by and Expect My Government to Get It Done.
I Fly My Geek Flag Proudly. Absolutely.
Reading a Hard Copy Book, and Reading a Book on an IPad Are Slightly Different Experiences. What They Both Have in Common Though Is That You Must Engage Your Imagination in the Process.
Yeah. I Do. I Think That We Have to Continue to Expand the Areas in Which We Want Our Kids to Be Literate. and Social Media’s Going to Be a Part of Their Lives. and Why Not? Why Not Give Them a Sense of What the Rules of the Road Are?
And It’s Here and It’s Ready and We Can Really Revolutionize the Way We Educate Our Children with Tablet Computers, and I’m Committed to Doing Whatever I Can to Speaking to Whomever I Can to Send This Signal – to Pound This Message Home. Now Is the Time.
We Can’t Afford to Sacrifice Another Generation of American Children to Bureaucratic Politics. We’ve Got to Get It Done. the Future, the Health, the Life – Our Nation Depends on It and It’s Just Foolish to Think or Act Otherwise.
It’s Definitely True That There Are a Lot of the Devices We Used on ‘Star Trek,’ That Came Out the Imagination of the Writers, and the Creators That Are Actually in the World Today.
I’m Excited to See How Current and Future Technologies Revolutionize the Way We Learn.
The Unvarnished Truth Is That We Have Spent the Last Decade Funding the Machinery of War, and Our Children Have Been Sacrificed.
I’ve Always Been Interested in Gadgets and Technology and I’ve Always Been a Reader.
We Want a Book to Be a Book. We’ll Have All the Interactive Bells and Whistles but Our Intent Is to Engage Young People in Reading, Not to Show Them a Movie.
I’m Enormously Proud of the Fact That Star Trek Has Really Not Just Sparked an Interest, but Encouraged, a Few Generations of People to Go into the Sciences.
It’s Not About Division. It’s Not About Politics. My Concern Is How Do We Come Together?
We Have an Amazing Advantage Right Now in That We Have Developed Technology That Is so Sexy, so Engaging for Kids.
All Literature Is Political.
I Genuinely Believe We Have an Opportunity to Revolutionize How We Educate Our Children.
We All Wish We Lived in a Perfect World. and If We Could Make It That Way, We Would. but the World Is Not Perfect. Sometimes Bad Things Do Happen, and Occasionally, the World Can Be a Scary Place to Be. but When We Have Each Other, Kindness, Generosity of the Human Spirit and Love Will Always Triumph. and Then We Can Get Through Even the Toughest of Times.
It’s Sometimes Really Difficult to Meet Your Heroes Because You Expect Certain Things of Them. We Sometimes Expect for Our Heroes to Not Be Human. We Expect for Them to Be Above the Frailties of Humanity And, of Course, None of Us Are.
Little-known facts about LeVar Burton — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
He entered a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood at age 13.
He demonstrated his general knowledge on Weakest Link in 2001, winning a record $167,500 for Junior Achievement Southern California.
He credits Cicely Tyson, Louis Gossett Jr., and Sir Patrick Stewart as his favorite acting mentors and best friends.
His father, Levardis Robert Burton Senior, served as a U.S. Army NCO from 1954 to 1976, retiring as Sergeant First Class when Burton’s acting career began.
Geordi La Forge was named after George La Forge, a Star Trek fan with muscular dystrophy, and was originally conceived as a gay character.
He holds the record for most Star Trek episodes directed by a Trek actor, with over two dozen episodes across all four modern Trek series.
His TNG parents, Ben Vereen and Madge Sinclair, both acted with him in Roots in different roles.
During his time on Star Trek: The Next Generation, he simultaneously hosted Reading Rainbow.
He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television on November 15, 1990, at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard.
He is an advocate for children’s literacy.
He named the 1963 film Lilies of the Field as his favorite for the American Film Institute.
His mother, Erma Jean Burton, worked as a social worker, administrator, and English teacher.
He attended and graduated from the University of Southern California School of Theater.
He was named Grand Marshal of the 2022 Rose Parade on October 5, 2021, leading the parade and Rose Bowl Game on January 1, 2022.
He played Madge Sinclair’s son in four productions and her character’s husband in Roots.
He met Stephanie Cozart Burton on the set of Roots: The Gift in 1988, and they married on October 3, 1992, the same day as Barack and Michelle Obama.
He graduated from Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento, California in 1974.
He received a star on the Sacramento Walk of Stars in 2016.
Though a close friend and protégé of Cicely Tyson, he was unable to attend her private funeral.
His daughter Mica Burton earned a BFA in Theatre from the University of Michigan in 2016.
He is a fan of the original Star Trek series.
He appeared as himself multiple times on The Big Bang Theory.
Three years before playing Geordi La Forge, he played a blind passenger on The Love Boat in an episode segment called Love is Blind.
He lives in Sherman Oaks, California.
He narrated the audiobook of The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis.
He was named host of Reading Rainbow in February 1982.
In November 1981, he taped the Reading Rainbow pilot and took his first trip to Africa.
He was the first guest on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show in 2009.
In April 1976, he signed with Wolper Productions to play a lead role in the TV adaptation of Roots.
In March 1979, he was announced to play a lawman in the TV pilot Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones.
The first annual LeVar Burton festival was held in September 1978, featuring two of his TV movies.
In November 1978, he was announced to star in the film Dummy.
In December 1979, he was cast in the CBS series The Mad Messiah.
In October 1979, he was cast in the film The Hunter.
In December 1978, he took on the challenging role of a deaf inmate.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about LeVar Burton.
Celebrities similar to LeVar Burton — same craft, ranked by reach.
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇨🇦 Canada
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🌍 United States of America
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
