LeVar Burton

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LeVar Burton

Birth name:	Levardis Robert Martin Burton, Jr.
Date of birth:	16 February 1957
Place of birth:	Landstuhl, Germany
Roles:	Performer, Director
Characters:	Geordi La Forge

Actor Levardis Robert Martin Burton, Jr. (born 16 February 1957; age 51) played Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation throughout the show's entire seven-year run, from 1987 to 1994. He also played La Forge in the four TNG-era Star Trek films, the TNG video game A Final Unity, and in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Timeless", which he also directed. In addition, he directed two episodes for Next Generation as well as numerous episodes for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise.

Besides his affiliation with Star Trek, Burton is known for his star-making, Emmy-nominated performance as Kunta Kinte in the acclaimed 1977 mini-series Roots. He is also well-known as the long-time host of the popular, Daytime Emmy Award-winning children's educational program Reading Rainbow.

1 Biography
2 Career
3 Acting Credits
4 Directing Credits
5 Books
6 External Links

[edit] Biography

The child of a military family, Burton was born in Landstuhl, Germany, as that is where his father – an Army NCO – was stationed at the time. At the age of 13, Burton entered a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood but ultimately decided to pursue an acting career instead, graduating from the University of Southern California's (USC) School of Theater.

In 1990, he received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame for his work in the field of television.

Burton married Stephanie Cozart, the make-up artist of Reading Rainbow, in 1992. Their daughter, Michaela, was born in 1994. Burton also has a son from a previous relationship, born in 1980, whom Burton was given joint custody of following a paternity suit.

Burton and his family currently reside in Nova Scotia. An avid poker player, Burton has participated in the World Poker Tour. [1]

[edit] Career

Burton was an undergraduate in USC's drama department when he was discovered and chosen to play the key role of Kunte Kinte in Roots, which premiered in January 1977. This groundbreaking mini-series became one of the most acclaimed and highest rated programs in U.S. television history, earning a total of 37 Emmy Award nominations (winning 9); Burton himself earned an Emmy nomination for his performance. Among Burton's co-stars in this series were Madge Sinclair and Ben Vereen – who would go on to play the parents of Burton's Geordi La Forge in the TNG episode "Interface". Sinclair and Vereen also received Emmy nominations for their performances in Roots.

Since Roots aired, Burton has appeared in a variety of film and television roles. He played the title role in the TV movie Billy: Portrait of a Street Kid., which debuted in September 1977, only eight months after Roots introduced Burton to television audiences. One month later, Burton was seen in his first feature film, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which also starred Richard Kiley. The following year, Burton reunited with Madge Sinclair in the TV movie One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story, with Burton playing the title character – an ex-con who became a professional baseball player – and Sinclair playing his mother. Burton concluded the decade with the TV movie Dummy, in which he co-starred with Paul Sorvino and Gregg Henry. Burton and Sorvino would work together again on the TNG episode "Homeward" and the 1994 TV movie Parallel Lives, while Henry would appear with Burton in Star Trek: Insurrection.

[edit] The 1980s

The 1980 TV movie Guyana Tragedy again saw Madge Sinclair and LeVar Burton play mother and son. This movie also featured future Trek veterans Brad Dourif, Meg Foster, Albert Hall, and Ed Lauter. Burton next co-starred with Steve McQueen in what proved to be the latter's final film, The Hunter (1980).

Burton subsequently appeared in a number of TV movies, including 1983's Emergency Room (featuring Gary Lockwood, Warren Munson, and Biff Yeager), 1984's The Jesse Owens Story (with Ronny Cox, James B. Sikking, Vic Tayback, and Burton's Roots co-star, Ben Vereen), 1985's The Midnight Hour (with Kurtwood Smith), and 1986's Liberty (co-starring Frank Langella and Chris Sarandon). In 1988, he reprised the role of Kunta Kinte for the TV Christmas special Roots: The Gift, which also featured Deep Space Nine star Avery Brooks, Voyager stars Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ, and TNG guest star Fran Bennett.

Burton broke into episodic television in the 1980s, guest-starring on an episode of Trapper John, M.D. (again working with Madge Sinclair, who was a regular on the series, as well as Miguel Ferrer and Louise Sorel) and Fantasy Island (starring Ricardo Montalban, in an episode with Janet MacLachlan). In addition, Burton co-starred with TOS actress Nichelle Nichols in the 1986 science fiction thriller, The Supernaturals, and appeared in a 1987 episode of Murder, She Wrote with Michael McGrady.

[edit] Reading Rainbow

In 1983, Burton began hosting Reading Rainbow, an educational program for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) aimed at encouraging children to read. As both host and executive producer of this series, Burton has earned a total of 10 Daytime Emmy nominations, with 6 wins. He also earned 7 Image Award nomination, winning 4 of them. For seven seasons of this show, Burton worked concurrently on this series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. One episode of Reading Rainbow actually showed a behind-the-scenes look at the making of TNG (specifically during the episode "Symbiosis"). As of 2007, Reading Rainbow has run for sixteen seasons.

[edit] Star Trek and Beyond

Burton was cast as Geordi La Forge in 1987, a blind Starfleet officer who utilizes a VISOR to see. Initially, the character was the flight controller of the Enterprise-D with the rank of lieutenant junior grade. By the second season, however, La Forge was the ship's chief engineer, holding the rank of lieutenant and later lieutenant commander. Burton starred on the show throughout all seven seasons, appearing in all but four of the 177 episodes.

Burton was later a member of the music band known as The Sunspots, along with his TNG castmates Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn and Patrick Stewart. They appeared as the background vocals for "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" on Brent Spiner's 1991 album Ol' Yellow Eyes is Back. He can also be heard on The Orb's track Little Fluffy Clouds, which sampled an episode of Reading Rainbow, apparently without his permission.

Since he was working on both TNG and Reading Rainbow at the same time, Burton did little else during the early 1990s. He did supply the voice of Planeteer Kwame as well as the opening narration on the hit animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers from 1990 through 1993; his TNG co-star Whoopi Goldberg also voiced on this series. In addition, he did voice work for an episode of Batman: The Animated Series entitled "The Worry Men" and played a fire chief in the 1993 TV movie Firestorm: 72 Hours in Oakland, co-starring Keone Young.

In 2001, LeVar along with several other Star Trek cast members including William Shatner, Wil Wheaton, Denise Crosby, and John de Lancie competed for charity on the NBC quiz show, "The Weakest Link." LeVar defeated Voyager actor Robert Picardo in the final round to win an impressive $167,500 for his charity, Junior Achievement of Southern California. It was a record for the show.

[edit] Directing

Burton directs Jeffrey Combs and Andrew Robinson

In addition to acting, Burton has directed many Star Trek episodes. In fact, he has directed the most episodes of any Star Trek actor and is one of only five directors to shoot at least one episode of every live-action Star Trek spin-off series, the others being James L. Conway, Winrich Kolbe, Mike Vejar and David Livingston.

It was during his time on TNG that Burton became interested in directing. He made his directorial debut with the sixth season episode "Second Chances". He then directed the "The Pegasus", an episode of the seventh and final season. After TNG ended, Burton moved on to direct ten episodes of Deep Space Nine, eight episodes of Voyager, and nine episodes of Enterprise.

In 1998, he directed his first non-Trek project, The Tiger Woods Story. His other television directorial credits include multiple episodes of Soul Food and Charmed. He also directed the 2003 family film Blizzard, starring Christopher Plummer and featuring the voice of Whoopi Goldberg as the title reindeer (Burton himself made a cameo appearance as an elf).

He recently directed and starred in the comic drama Reach for Me, working with performers Adrienne Barbeau, Seymour Cassel, and Alfre Woodard, and cameraman Kris Krosskove. Another directing project – a film called Initiation – is also in the works.

[edit] Post-TNG Acting Career

After TNG, Burton had a recurring role on the CBS series Christy and made a guest appearance on Brent Spiner's new, short-lived series, Deadly Games (co-starring Christopher Lloyd). In 1996, Burton co-starred with Richard Herd and Malcolm McDowell in the Showtime sci-fi thriller Yesterday's Son. That same year, Burton became one of many Star Trek actors to voice a character on the hit animated Disney series Gargoyles. His TNG co-stars Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, and Michael Dorn also did voice work on the series, as did Nichelle Nichols, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Michael Bell, Clancy Brown, Matt Frewer, Gerrit Graham, Clyde Kusatsu, John Rhys-Davies, W. Morgan Sheppard, David Warner, and Paul Winfield.

Burton's more recent acting credits include an appearance on Becker (starring DS9's Terry Farrell, in an episode with Andy Milder), a brief appearance as Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 2001 biographical film Ali (also featuring Albert Hall and Bruce McGill), and a guest spot on Boomtown (starring Neal McDonough, in an episode with Vanessa Williams). In 2005, he had a voice-over role in an episode of Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy.

Burton's latest appearance as Geordi La Forge was in the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis. Burton was not pleased with this supposedly final chapter in the TNG saga, remarking at DragonCon 2005 that the reason it failed at the box office was "because it sucked". Burton also held contempt for Nemesis director Stuart Baird, who, according to Burton and his castmates, continually called Burton "Laverne" and erroneously referred to his character as an "alien". [2]