LeVar Burton

Best Known As...

Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Kunta Kinte in the miniseries, Roots, and host of the long-running series Reading Rainbow on PBS.

Current / Recent Work

LeVar still hosts Reading Rainbow. He's also president of Eagle Nation Films, where he has several projects in development for film and television, some of which he'll be directing and/or producing himself.

Bio

Levardis Robert Burton Jr. was born February 16, 1957 in Landstuhl, Germany, where his father was serving in the US Army.

After applying for and winning a scholarship to USC, LeVar began working toward a degree in drama and fine arts. During his sophomore year he auditioned for his Emmy-winning role Kunta Kinte in the award-winning miniseries, Roots.

Following Roots, LeVar starred in a variety of television movies including the Emmy-nominated Dummy, One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story, Grambling's White Tiger, The Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, Battered, Billy: Portrait of a Street Kid, A Roots Christmas: Kunta Kinte's Gift and the miniseries Liberty.

Among his feature film credits are Looking for Mr. Goodbar, The Hunter with Steve McQueen and The Supernaturals.

Noteable Facts

In Star Trek: The Next Generation his characters parents were played by two of his Roots co-stars: Ben Vereen played his father in Star Trek TNG and his grandson in Roots; Madge Sinclair played his character's wife in Roots and his mother in Star Trek TNG.

His character Geordi La Forge was named after George La Forge, a Star Trek fan who died from muscular dystrophy.

As of November 2003 he held the record for the most number of Star Trek episodes directed by a Star Trek actor. He had, at that point, directed more than two-dozen episodes for every one of the four "modern era" Trek series, and has directed even more since that time.