LeVar Burton

LeVar Burton turns 70 in February 2027. The thing most people know him for began while he was still a drama student. Burton was born on 16 February 1957 in Landstuhl, West Germany, where his father was an Army photographer [1]. Twenty years later he was on American television as Kunta Kinte in Roots. Three more kinds of work followed: children's host, starship engineer and podcast narrator.

Early life and family

After his parents separated, Burton moved at the age of three with his mother, Erma Christian, and his sisters Letitia and Valencia to Sacramento, California [1]. His mother was an English teacher. Burton has described reading as something close to a household habit: "My mom was an English teacher, and reading, for my family, was like breathing" [1].

He went to parochial school and considered the priesthood. At 13 he entered a Catholic seminary, and he left at 17 after questioning Catholic dogma [1]. He then won a scholarship to study drama. Sources disagree on the school: Contemporary Black Biography notes that one account names the University of California and another the University of Southern California [1]. We do not pick one.

The break: Roots in 1977

The role that started everything was Kunta Kinte. For the ABC miniseries Roots, author Alex Haley and the network searched drama schools for a young Black actor to play the part [1]. They found Burton. The series became a major hit and sparked a national discussion about slavery and race, and Burton received a 1977 Emmy nomination for best actor [1].

Burton later said of Haley: "He handed me my dreams on a silver platter" [1]. He was also candid about the cost of the part. By his own account he worked for about five years to avoid being typecast as Kinte, saying "I made a supreme and conscious effort to distance myself from Kunta" [1]. He reprised the role in the 1988 television film Roots: The Gift [1].

Reading Rainbow

Burton began hosting the PBS series Reading Rainbow in 1983 and became a contributing producer in 1987 [1]. CBS News later described him as having hosted the show for more than 23 years [3], and Georgia Public Broadcasting puts the figure at 23 years as well [4]. Sources disagree on when the show left the air: TechCrunch says 2006 [15], while MPR News says it aired through 2009 [14].

The work brought NAACP Image Awards, including one in January 1994 [1], and, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting, 12 Daytime Emmys and a Peabody Award [4]. He has tied his love of books to his mother. In a Kickstarter post he wrote: "It was my mother who taught me that, by picking up a book, I could 'go anywhere' and 'be anything'" [14].

Geordi La Forge and directing

From 1987 to 1994 Burton played Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, the blind chief engineer, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Contemporary Black Biography says he appeared in every episode [1]. He also played La Forge in several of the Star Trek films [1]. In a farewell comment on leaving the series he said, "This has been a very fulfilling seven-year cycle in my life" [1].

The cast stayed close. Burton has said that Brent Spiner was his best man, and that Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes and Michael Dorn were groomsmen [11]. He has also described the cast as friends who shared weddings, births and the deaths of parents [11].

Behind the camera, he directed his first Star Trek episode, "Second Chances", in 1993. He went on to direct episodes of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise [1]. He also founded Eagle Nation Films and wrote the screenplay for Malidoma [1].

Career timeline and best-known work

Year	Title	Role
1977	Roots (ABC miniseries)	Kunta Kinte [1]
1983 onward	Reading Rainbow (PBS)	Host, later contributing producer [1]
1987 to 1994	Star Trek: The Next Generation	Geordi La Forge [1]
1988	Roots: The Gift	Kunta Kinte [1]
1993	"Second Chances" (Star Trek: The Next Generation)	Director [1]
2010 onward	Community (NBC), seasons 2 and 5	Himself, guest spots [17]
Seasons 4, 6, 8	The Big Bang Theory (CBS)	Himself, guest spots [16]
2017	LeVar Burton Reads (podcast)	Host and reader [10]
2023	Star Trek: Picard, season 3	Geordi La Forge [12]

On Community he played himself twice. In the season 2 episode "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" the character Troy, played by Donald Glover, is such a fan that he refuses to meet him, and Burton returned in season 5 [17]. On The Big Bang Theory he also played himself, in three episodes: "The Toast Derivation" (season 4), "The Habitation Configuration" (season 6) and "The Champagne Reflection" (season 8) [16]. Burton called the experience "fantastical fun" [16]. In December 2010 it was reported that he was shooting the first Community guest spot and had also joined the pilot of the TNT drama Perception as a character named Paul Haley [13].

Reading Rainbow online: the 2014 Kickstarter

Burton and business partner Mark Wolfe co-founded the for-profit company RRKidz and hold the global rights to Reading Rainbow in partnership with the show's creator, WNED in Buffalo, New York [14]. A tablet version released in 2012 became a top-selling education app [14].

On 28 May 2014 Burton launched a Kickstarter campaign with a $1 million goal, which was reached within hours [14]. By 30 June TechCrunch reported more than 91,000 backers, the most for any Kickstarter campaign up to that point, and nearly $5 million raised [15]. The plan was to bring the series to more children online, and to make a classroom version free to at least 1,500 of the neediest classrooms [14].

LeVar Burton Reads and the Jeopardy moment

On 13 June 2017 Burton launched LeVar Burton Reads, a weekly podcast in which he reads short fiction aloud. Episodes were free on all platforms, and Stitcher Premium subscribers got them a week early from episode two [10]. It moved his audience from children to adults.

In 2021 more than 200,000 people signed a petition asking for him to become the next host of Jeopardy after Alex Trebek's death. Sony Pictures Television named him among the guest hosts, and Burton said on Twitter that he was overjoyed, excited and eager to guest-host [7]. He did not get the permanent job, which the Associated Press described as an unsuccessful public campaign [8]. In December 2021 he was named host of the Scripps National Spelling Bee [8]. He was also named grand marshal of the next Rose Parade [8].

Awards

At the 42nd Grammy Awards in 2000 Burton won Best Spoken Word Album for his narration of The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. [2]. The Recording Academy lists two further nominations: in 1994 for Miles: The Autobiography and in 2022 for Aftermath [2]. In April 2022 it was announced that he would receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the first Children's & Family Emmys, to be held in Los Angeles in December [3]. He also has a Hollywood Walk of Fame star from 1990 [1].

Relationships

Burton married Stephanie Cozart, a makeup artist, on 3 October 1992 [1] [6]. Hello! reports that she won a 2013 Daytime Emmy for her work on The Talk [5]. Burton described her in a 2013 interview as "a goddess" [5].

The couple has one daughter, Michaela "Mica" Jean Burton, born on 8 July 1994 [6] [5]. Burton also has a son, Eian, born in 1980 from an earlier relationship with Chimara P. Smith [1] [5] [6]. Mica made her acting debut in the third season of Star Trek: Picard, playing one of Geordi La Forge's two daughters, which was the first time she and her father had worked together [12] [11].

Net worth

We did not find a dated net-worth estimate from a named, reliable outlet. The page therefore gives no number.

What he is doing now

Burton returned as Geordi La Forge in the third and last season of Star Trek: Picard, whose Los Angeles premiere was on 9 February 2023 [12]. Around that time he was also promoting The Right to Read, a literacy documentary he produced with filmmaker Jenny MacKenzie [12]. In February 2024 Kirkus Reviews reported, citing People, that he had signed with Pantheon for two books: a memoir about being your authentic self, scheduled for 2026, and a book about reading due two years later [9].