Levardis Robert Martyn Burton (born February 16, 1957) is an American actor, director, and television host. He played Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) and Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries Roots (1977), and was the host of the PBS Kids educational television series Reading Rainbow for 23 years (1983–2006). Burton received 12 Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award as host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow.
His other roles include Cap Jackson in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Donald Lang in Dummy (1979), Tommy Price in The Hunter (1980), which earned him an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture, and Martin Luther King Jr. in Ali (2001). Burton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards for his narration of the book The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1990, he was honored for his accomplishments in television with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
From 2017 until 2024, Burton created and hosted the podcast LeVar Burton Reads, which has been described as "Reading Rainbow for adults". Since October 2024, Burton has hosted the Trivial Pursuit game show on The CW.
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Early life
Burton was born as Levardis Robert Burton Jr. on February 16, 1957, in Landstuhl, West Germany. His mother, Erma Gene (née Ward), was a social worker, administrator, and educator. Burton and his two sisters were raised by his mother in Sacramento, California, United States.
Burton's father, also named LeVar, was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps stationed at Landstuhl at the time of his son's birth. His paternal grandparents were both educators in rural Arkansas. His great-great grandfather, Hal B. Burton, was an African-American state legislator in Arkansas after the Reconstruction era that enfranchised African Americans in the South after the American Civil War; he was elected to represent Jefferson County in 1887.
Burton was raised Catholic. Upon his confirmation in the church, he took on Martyn and dropped Jr. as a part of his name. As a teen, Burton entered St. Pius X Minor Seminary in Galt, California, intending to become a priest. At the age of 17, questioning the Catholic faith, he changed his vocation to acting. At the age of 19, while an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, he received a starring role in the 1977 television miniseries Roots.
Career
Early work
Burton made his acting debut in 1977 with Almos' a Man, a television film based on the Richard Wright short story, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man", in which Burton stars alongside Madge Sinclair. He also played Cap Jackson in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Donald Lang in Dummy (1979), and Tommy Price in The Hunter (1980), which earned him an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture. In the late 1970s, Burton accepted an invitation to host Rebop, a multicultural television series designed for young people aged 9–15, produced by WGBH for PBS.
Roots
Burton's breakthrough role was as the young Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries Roots (1977), based on the novel of the same name by Alex Haley. Burton has described his first day playing Kunta as the start of his professional career. As a result of his performance, he was nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in a Drama or Comedy Series category.
He reprised the role of Kunta Kinte in the 1988 television film Roots: The Gift. When asked about the societal influence of Roots, Burton is quoted as saying: "It expanded the consciousness of people. Blacks and whites began to see each other as human beings, not as stereotypes. And if you throw a pebble into the pond, you're going to get ripples. I think the only constant is change, and it's always slow. Anything that happens overnight is lacking in foundation. Roots is part of a changing trend, and it's still being played out."
Reading Rainbow
Burton was the host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow starting in 1983 for PBS. The series ran for 23 seasons.
After Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006, Burton and his business partner, Mark Wolfe, acquired the global rights to the brand and formed RRKIDZ, a new media company for children. Reading Rainbow was reimagined as an all new application for the iPad in 2012, and was an immediate success, becoming the number-one educational application within 36 hours. At RRKIDZ, Burton serves as co-founder and curator-in-chief, ensuring that the projects produced under the banner meet the high expectations and trust of the Reading Rainbow brand.
On May 28, 2014, Burton and numerous coworkers from other past works started a Kickstarter campaign project to bring back Reading Rainbow. To keep with the changing formats to which young children are exposed, his efforts are being directed at making this new program web based, following the success of the tablet application he helped create in recent years. His desire is to have the new Reading Rainbow be integrated into the classrooms of elementary schools across the country, and for schools in need to have free access. The Kickstarter campaign has since raised more than $5 million, reaching triple its goal in only three days.
In 2017, Burton was sued by the public broadcasting company WNED-TV for alleged copyright infringement for use of the Reading Rainbow brand in marketing the new iPad app and other online media. RRKIDZ later became known as LeVar Burton Kids and the iPad app, Skybrary.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
In 1986, Gene Roddenberry approached Burton with the role of Lieutenant Junior Grade Geordi La Forge in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. The character is blind but is granted "sight" through the use of a prosthetic device called a VISOR worn over his eyes. La Forge began as the USS Enterprise's helmsman, and as of the show's second season, had become its chief engineer. At the time, Burton was considerably better known than Patrick Stewart in the United States, due to his roles in Roots and Reading Rainbow. When the show premiered, the Associated Press stated that Burton's role was essentially the "new Spock". In a 2019 interview, Burton laughed in disbelief at the idea, stating "that speculation never came to fruition." Burton also portrayed La Forge in the subsequent feature films based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, from Star Trek Generations (1994) to Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). He directed two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. He reprised the role of LaForge in the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard (2023).
Podcast: LeVar Burton Reads
In 2017, Burton began a podcast, LeVar Burton Reads. Each 30-45-minute episode features Burton reading a piece of short fiction and sharing his thoughts on it. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he continued to read on his podcast and also gave live readings three times a week during a Twitter livestream focused at different times to different children, young adults, and adult audiences.
In reviews, the podcast is often described as "Reading Rainbow for adults". Since its launch, LeVar Burton Reads has won favorable reviews, in The New Yorker and elsewhere and numerous awards, including the 2023 Webby Award for Best Art and Culture Podcast. Burton's five-word Webby acceptance speech was: "Be a better person. Read."
In 2023, Burton launched a second podcast, this time for children, called Sound Detectives.
Trivial Pursuit
On October 3, 2024, Burton began hosting a revival of the game show Trivial Pursuit on The CW. A second season is expected to premiere in 2026.
Other appearances
On television, Burton played a visitor to Fantasy Island, guest starred on The Love Boat, was a participant in Battle of the Network Stars, and a guest of The Muppet Show's televised premiere party for the release of The Muppet Movie. He was also frequent guest on several game shows, including a celebrity guest on the Dick Clark-hosted $25,000 and $100,000 Pyramids, from 1982 until 1988.
Burton also appeared in several television movies. He portrayed Detroit Tiger Ron LeFlore in One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (1978), helped dramatize the last days of Jim Jones's suicide cult in Guyana in Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), appeared the Jesse Owens biographical film The Jesse Owens Story (1984), and was in the nine-year-old Booker T. Washington biographical film Booker (1984).
In 1986, he appeared in the music video for the song "Word Up!" by the funk/R&B group Cameo.
In 1987, Burton played Dave Robinson, a journalist (sports writer), in the third season of Murder, She Wrote, episode 16 – "Death Takes a Dive", starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.
In 1992, a clip of Burton's voice was sampled by DC Talk for the track "Time is..." on their album Free at Last. The sample is at the very end of the song, in which Burton can be heard saying: "Whoa, wait a minute." He has also lent his voice to several animated projects, including Kwame in the cartoon series Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990–1993) and The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1993–1996), Our Friend, Martin (1999), Family Guy, Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles. Burton is on the audio version of books such as The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Burton has been cast as voice actor for Black Lightning in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies DVD.
In the 2000s, Burton made appearances in such sitcoms as Becker. He also portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the 2001 film Ali.
In 2001, Burton also was the strongest link in the special Star Trek episode of The Weakest Link. He defeated his final opponent Robert Picardo and won $167,500 for his charity, Junior Achievement of Southern California, a record for the show at that time and the largest amount won in any Celebrity Edition of the show (it was later surpassed by a $188,500 win in a "Tournament of Losers" episode).
Directing
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Burton directed episodes for each of the various Star Trek series then in production. He has directed more Star Trek episodes than any other former regular cast member.
He has also directed episodes of Charmed, JAG, Las Vegas, Scorpion, and Soul Food: The Series, as well as the miniseries Miracle's Boys and the biopic The Tiger Woods Story. He also directed the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House starring Katey Sagal, Kevin Kilner and Jessica Steen. In August 2020, it was revealed that Burton will sit in the director's chair for Two-Front War from Lou Reda Productions, a multi-perspective docuseries will give "an emotionally raw look at the connection between the fight for civil rights in America and the struggle for equality of Black soldiers in Vietnam".
His first theatrical film direction was Blizzard (2003), for which he received a "Best of Fest" award from the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, and a Genie Award nomination for his work on the film's theme song, "Center of My Heart".
For the Directors Guild of America, Burton was an alternate board director in 2000, elected to the board of directors in 2005 and re-elected in 2007.
For his commitment to public service, Burton was awarded the Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service in 2023.
Advocacy
LeVar Burton has engaged in advocacy work on multiple causes including literacy, book censorship, and AIDS research. He has served on the board of directors for the AIDS Research Alliance, a non-profit, medical research organization dedicated to finding a cure for AIDS, since 2012. In 2023, he led the American Library Association's Banned Books Week as an honorary chair and organized signature campaign, Artists Against Book Bans. He also served as the executive producer for the documentary, The Right to Read, a film focused on promoting literacy as a civil-rights issue.
Personal life
LeVar Burton married Stephanie Cozart, a professional make-up artist, on October 3, 1992. Burton has two children, including Mica Burton. The family lives in Sherman Oaks, California.
Burton does not identify with any religion, saying: "I walked away from the seminary, I walked away from Catholicism, I walked away from organized religion because I felt that there was more for me to explore in the world, and that I could do that without adhering to one specific belief system or another."
In 2016, Burton was one of the five inaugural honorees to the Sacramento Walk of Stars. In 2019, Councilmember Larry Carr, representing the Meadowview neighborhood, led the renaming of Richfield Park to LeVar Burton Park in his honor. The park is in the Meadowview neighborhood, near the house where Burton and his sisters grew up.
In 2024, while on the show Finding Your Roots, Burton discovered that he has a white, Confederate great-great-grandfather.