LeVar Burton

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LeVar Burton (2009)

Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957 in Landstuhl , Germany ) is an American actor , director , producer, author and educator . He was best known in the German-speaking world for his role as Geordi La Forge in the series Spaceship Enterprise - The Next Century .

Life

Childhood and youth

Burton was born to American parents at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center . He has two older sisters.

His mother, Erma Jean (née Christian), was a high school English teacher , social worker , administrator and educator. His father, Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, was a photographer for the United States Army Signal Corps with the 3rd Armored Division in Landstuhl . The family returned to the United States before Burton's first birthday.

The father was posted to Germany a second time when Burton was in third grade. During the stationing in Germany, Erma Jean took on the role of housewife , although it was against her temperament . The second deployment was overshadowed by domestic violence , which weighed heavily on Burton and led to the breakdown of the marriage. After the end of the second deployment, while Burton was in the fifth grade, the father returned to the United States with his family, but then moved to Florida alone .

Speaking of school, Burton says that while he shared a language with majority society in the United States, he did not share a culture, nor did he feel invited to become part of the majority society. In Germany, however, there was a language barrier, but he was not excluded because of his skin color. After this experience, his recent return to the United States required some adjustment to slip back into his old skin. Burton didn't hear from his father again until he was a young adult, after the success of the television series Roots .

Erma Jean settled with the three children in Sacramento in the Meadowview district, which was pejoratively referred to as " Ghettoview ". She immediately took up a job as a social worker for the Sacramento County Department of Social Welfare while attending night school for a master's degree in social work. She sent the three children to a Catholic private school .

Burton subscribed to Catholicism at the age of eight. In the Catholic parish he found support and structure, served as an altar boy , was confirmed and entered the seminary at the age of 13 , which as a boarding school was both high school and preparation for the role of priest. The theatrical, show-business-like aspects of the liturgy particularly appealed to him, as did its central role in the life and health of a community. At the age of 15 his view had changed, the narrow and absolute claims of Catholic teaching no longer appealed to him, and he struggled with the restrictions of celibacy . He looked around for another way of life.

Beginnings as an actor

In high school, Burton was on the stage from day one. There were passion plays and comedies performed. Burton received a full scholarship to study the performing arts at the prestigious University of Southern California , for which he moved to Los Angeles in 1974 and studied drama, history, philosophy and English. During his sophomore year, the producers of the television series Roots were looking for an actor to play the role of the young Kunta Kinte . There were only two other black students at the drama school at the time. Burton was selected for the role in the spring of 1976, and filming began before the school year ended. In September he continued his studies, but devoted little attention to them apart from advertising appearances for the series.

Roots proved to be a milestone in American culture when it aired in early 1977. Burton's portrayal of a slave abducted from Africa who had to survive in the New World under unworthy conditions was rewarded with a nomination for an Emmy Award (category: best individual appearance by an actor in a dramatic or comedic series).

Reading rainbow

From 1983 Burton worked as a producer and host of the children's program Reading Rainbow , which should encourage children to read. The format ran for 23 years, making it the longest running children's program in the United States. For his role as a host and his role as a producer, Burton received a total of twelve Emmies , six Image Awards and a Peabody Award .

In 2014 he got into the media through the crowdfunding campaign he started trying to bring the Reading Rainbow series back to life. The campaign raised over $ 5.1 million from a total of approximately 102,000 supporters, the highest number of supporters to date.

Since Burton has no rights to the successful Reading Rainbow brand , he has been publishing his own podcast LeVar Burton Reads since June 2017 , in which he reads short stories from well-known and unknown authors, primarily from the field of fantastic literature .

In 2001 he published the science fiction novel Afterwards (original title: Aftermath ).

Star Trek

Burton with Star Trek actors Brent Spiner and William Shatner at Comic Con in San Diego (2010)

From 1987 to 1994, LeVar Burton played his best-known role as chief engineer Geordi La Forge in the television series Spaceship Enterprise - The Next Century Who Can See Through a Special Device, a Technically Advanced Prosthesis called the Visor. He also played this role in the four films for the series, which appeared between 1994 and 2002, and in an episode of the Star Trek series : Voyager .

Burton has also directed numerous episodes of the various Star Trek series.

Awards

  • 1990: Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
  • 1992: Peabody Award as producer of Reading Rainbow for the episode "The Wall"
  • 2000: Grammy Award in the Best Spoken Word Album category as audio book speaker for "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr."
  • 2003: Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming for the producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 2004: Best of Fest at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, directing Blizzard

Daytime Emmy

  • 1990: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 1993: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 1996: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 1997: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 1998: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 2001: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 2001: as Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series in Reading Rainbow
  • 2002: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 2002: as Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series in Reading Rainbow
  • 2003: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 2005: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow
  • 2007: Outstanding Children's Series as producer of Reading Rainbow

NAACP Image Award

  • 1995: in the category Outstanding Performance in a Youth or Children's Series / Special as moderator of Reading Rainbow
  • 1996: in the category Outstanding Educational / Informational Youth or Children's Series / Special as producer of "A Reading Rainbow Special: Act Against Violence"
  • 1996: in the category Outstanding Performance in an Educational / Informational Youth or Children's Series / Special as moderator of "A Reading Rainbow Special: Act Against Violence"
  • 1999: in the category Outstanding Performance in a Youth or Children's Series / Special as moderator of Reading Rainbow
  • 2002: in the category Outstanding Performance in a Youth or Children's Series / Special as moderator of Reading Rainbow
  • 2003: in the category Outstanding Performance in a Youth or Children's Series / Special as moderator of Reading Rainbow

Filmography (selection)

as an actor
as a director
as a producer
  • 1983-2006: Reading Rainbow

Music video

Web links

Commons : LeVar Burton  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LeVar Burton Biography (1957-) . Filmreference.com. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
  2. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000996/awards
  3. ↑ Crowdfunding record: Over 102,000 supporters for "Star Trek" star. In: derStandard.at. July 2, 2014, accessed December 5, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Burton, LeVar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Burton, Levardis Robert Martyn Jr. (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor, director, and writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Landstuhl , Germany