LeVar Burton Biography
LeVar Burton is an actor, filmmaker, and television personality from the United States. He starred as Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, in the ABC miniseries Roots, and for more than 23 years as the host of the PBS Kids educational television series Reading Rainbow. As the host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow, he garnered 12 Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award.
How old is LeVar Burton? – Age
He is 66 years old as of 16 February 2023. He was born in 1957 in Landstuhl, Germany. His real name is Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr.
Does LeVar Burton have a family? – Education
Erma Gene (née Christian), his mother, was a social worker, administrator, and educator, while his father and namesake was a photographer for the United States Army Signal Corps stationed at Landstuhl at the time of his son’s birth. Burton and his two sisters were reared in Sacramento, California, by his mother. Burton, who was reared Catholic, enrolled as an adolescent at St. Pius X Minor Seminary in Galt, California, with the intention of becoming a priest. He shifted his vocation to acting at the age of 17, after questioning his Catholic faith, and at the age of 19, while an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, he landed a starring role in the 1977 television miniseries Roots.
Is LeVar Burton still married? – Wife
On October 3, 1992, LeVar Burton married Stephanie Cozart, a professional make-up artist. Burton has two children: Eian Burton Smith, a son, and Michaela “Mica” Jean Burton, a daughter. The family currently resides in Sherman Oaks, California.
How much does LeVar Burton make? – Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $6 Million.
LeVar Burton Star Trek
Burton was approached by Gene Roddenberry in 1986 for the role of Lieutenant Junior Grade Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Cutting edge TV series. The character is blind, but by wearing a prosthetic called a VISOR over his eyes, he is given “sight.” La Produce started as the USS Undertaking’s helmsman, and as of the show’s subsequent season, had turned into its central architect. Due to his roles in Roots and Reading Rainbow, Burton was significantly more well-known in the United States than Patrick Stewart at the time.
At the point when the show debuted, the Related Press expressed that Burton’s job was basically the “new Spock”. “That speculation never came to fruition,” Burton said in an interview in 2019 in disbelief. Additionally, Burton played La Forge in the subsequent Star Trek-based motion pictures: From Star Trek Generations (1994) to Star Trek: The Next Generation (2002) Nemesis He directed two Star Trek episodes: Star Trek and a few episodes of The Next Generation: Star Trek, Deep Space Nine: Star Trek and Voyager: Enterprise. In the third and final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, he played LaForge once more.
LeVar Burton Reading Rainbow
Beginning in 1983, Burton worked for PBS as the host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow. The series ran for 23 seasons. In the wake of Perusing Rainbow went behind closed doors in 2006, Burton and his colleague, Imprint Wolfe, procured the worldwide privileges to the brand and framed RRKIDZ, another media organization for youngsters. In 2012, Reading Rainbow was reimagined as an entirely new iPad app, and within 36 hours, it had become the most downloaded educational app. Burton is co-founder and chief curator at RRKIDZ, ensuring that the projects produced under the banner meet Reading Rainbow’s high standards and earn their trust.
Burton and a number of former coworkers launched a Kickstarter campaign on May 28, 2014, to bring Reading Rainbow back. His efforts are being directed toward making this new program web-based, following the success of the tablet application he helped create in recent years, to keep up with the changing formats that young children are exposed to. He wants the new Reading Rainbow to be used in elementary schools all over the country, and he wants schools in need to get free access to it. Since then, the Kickstarter campaign has raised more than $5 million, exceeding its goal by three times.
The public broadcasting company WNED-TV filed a lawsuit against Burton in 2017 for alleged copyright infringement for using the Reading Rainbow brand to promote the new iPad app and other online media. LeVar Burton Kids and the iPad app Skybrary followed RRKIDZ.
LeVar Burton Jeopardy
Burton appeared on Jeopardy! as a guest host from July 26 to July 30, 2021. More than 250,000 fans filed a petition requesting that he be chosen by the show’s producers. Due to dwindling consumer interest and forced viewership rivalry with NBC’s coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which trampled syndicated shows across the board, ratings for his presence were below average. He has been harshly critical of the show’s guest host selection procedure, claiming that the show’s then-executive producer Mike Richards was surprised that Burton wanted the gig. According to Burton, Richards also claimed to have no interest in hosting the show personally, despite following circumstances proving otherwise.
LeVar Burton Podcast
Burton launched his podcast, LeVar Burton Reads, in 2017. Burton reads a brief narrative in each episode. on the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, he continues to read on his podcast and also gives live readings three times a week on a Twitter livestream aimed at different children, young adults, and adult audiences.