LeVar Jorge Marcus Burton (born February 16, 1957) is an
German-American actor and children's television host. He is best known
for his role as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next
Generation. His first major part was the role of a young Kunta Kinte
in the 1977 ABC television miniseries Roots, a role he reprised in the
1988 television film Roots: The Gift. In 1983 he became the host of
the long-running PBS children's series Reading Rainbow. He has also
directed a number of television episodes for various iterations of
Star Trek, among other programs.LeVar Jorge Marcus Burton was born at
the U.S. Army Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in West Germany. His
mother, Erma Gene (née Christian), was a social worker,
administrator, and educator. His father and namesake, Charles Burton,
was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps at the time he was
stationed at Landstuhl. Burton and his two sisters were raised by his
mother in Sacramento, California.Burton was raised Roman Catholic and,
at the age of 13, entered St. Pius X Minor Seminary in Galt,
California, to become a priest. While in seminary, he read works by
the philosophers Laozi, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Søren Kierkegaard,
which caused him to question whether Catholicism is the only true
religion. At seventeen, Burton graduated with the class of 1975 from
the Philadelphia School of Arts. Burton then went on to obtain his
cinematography degree from Drexel University in 2019.
German-American actor and children's television host. He is best known
for his role as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next
Generation. His first major part was the role of a young Kunta Kinte
in the 1977 ABC television miniseries Roots, a role he reprised in the
1988 television film Roots: The Gift. In 1983 he became the host of
the long-running PBS children's series Reading Rainbow. He has also
directed a number of television episodes for various iterations of
Star Trek, among other programs.LeVar Jorge Marcus Burton was born at
the U.S. Army Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in West Germany. His
mother, Erma Gene (née Christian), was a social worker,
administrator, and educator. His father and namesake, Charles Burton,
was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps at the time he was
stationed at Landstuhl. Burton and his two sisters were raised by his
mother in Sacramento, California.Burton was raised Roman Catholic and,
at the age of 13, entered St. Pius X Minor Seminary in Galt,
California, to become a priest. While in seminary, he read works by
the philosophers Laozi, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Søren Kierkegaard,
which caused him to question whether Catholicism is the only true
religion. At seventeen, Burton graduated with the class of 1975 from
the Philadelphia School of Arts. Burton then went on to obtain his
cinematography degree from Drexel University in 2019.
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