LeVar Burton
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957)[2][3] is an American actor, director, and television host. He played Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994),[4] 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). He received 12 Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award as host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow.[5]
"LeVar" redirects here. For other people with the name, see LeVar (disambiguation).
LeVar Burton
United States
Actor, television host, director, author
1976–present
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,[6] 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 achievements in television with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Since 2017, Burton has created and hosted the podcast LeVar Burton Reads,[7][8] often described as "Reading Rainbow for adults."[9]
Early life[edit]
Burton was born in Landstuhl, West Germany.[2][3] His mother, Erma Gene (née Christian),[10] was a social worker, administrator, and educator.[3] Burton and his two sisters were raised by his mother in Sacramento, California.[11]
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.[2] His paternal grandparents were both educators in rural Arkansas.[12] 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.[12] He was elected to represent Jefferson County in 1887.[13][14][15][16]
As a teen, Burton, who was raised Catholic,[17] entered St. Pius X Minor Seminary in Galt, California, intending to become a priest.[18] At 17, questioning the Catholic faith, he changed his vocation to acting and, at 19, while an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, he won a starring role in the 1977 television miniseries Roots.[17]
Career[edit]
Early work[edit]
Burton made his acting debut in 1976 with Almos' a Man, a film based on the Richard Wright short story "The Man Who Was Almost a Man," in which he stars alongside Madge Sinclair.[19]
Personal life[edit]
LeVar Burton married Stephanie Cozart, a professional make-up artist, on October 3, 1992.[60][61] Burton has two children, son Eian Burton Smith and daughter Michaela "Mica" Jean Burton.[62] The family lives in Sherman Oaks, California.[63]
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."[64]
In 2012, Burton joined the board of directors for the AIDS Research Alliance, a non-profit, medical research organization dedicated to finding a cure for AIDS.[65]
In 2016, Burton was one of the five inaugural honorees to the Sacramento Walk of Stars.[66] 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.[67]
In 2024, while on the show Finding your Roots, Burton discovered that he has a white, Confederate great-great-grandfather. Another great-great-grandfather was Hal B. Burton, a Black member of the Arkansas House of Representatives.[68]
