Today in Star Trek history: LeVar Burton is born

LeVar and La Forge, together at last, on the bridge of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s USS Enterprise!

FEBRUARY 16, 2022 - The Pakleds valued him as someone who could make a starship go. Families across the United States value him as the man who taught their children the importance of books. On this date in 1957, LeVar Burton was born.

Although he is an American actor, Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. was actually born in Landstuhl, West Germany. His mother was an English teacher and his father was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, which is how newborn Levardis found himself making his debut on foreign shores. Soon after, his mother took him and his two sisters to Sacramento, California to raise them.

Burton was raised Catholic and, as a teen entered the seminary, intending to become a priest. By the time he was 17, he found himself questioning his faith, and left the seminary, deciding his true passion lay in acting. It wasn’t long before he landed his first film role, while an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, in Almos’ a Man, a film based on a short story by Richard Wright. But it wasn’t until a year later that he would be cast in his breakthrough role.

1977’s Roots was a miniseries like no other. Based upon a novel by Alex Haley, it told the story of an 18th-century adolescent named Kunta Kinte, an African who was sold into slavery and subsequently brought to America. As the title suggests, the series followed the saga of an American family, tracing Kunta Kinte’s descendants from those early days of his slavery through the Civil War and beyond. The miniseries was packed with current and future stars, including Ben Vereen (who eventually appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Geordi La Forge’s father), Maya Angelou, Sandy Duncan, Leslie Uggams, OJ Simpson and LLoyd Bridges, who had once upon a time been considered for the role of Captain Christopher Pike in the first pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. According to Burton, his first day on the set of Roots was the start of his professional career, and certainly it was a seminal moment for him, receiving an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in a Drama or Comedy Series. It also led to a second outing in the role in the 1988 Christmas special, Roots: The Gift.

“It expanded the consciousness of people,” Burton said in a 1987 interview for the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. “Blacks and whites began to see each other as human beings, not stereotypes. And if you throw a pebble into the pond, you’re going to get ripples.”

Burton wasn’t finished making a difference. In 1983, he became the host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow, an educational children’s television series that aired on PBS, all about books. Burton was a fan of books from an early age, citing his mother as his inspiration. Talking to Esquire in 2019, he said, “We get out of the habit of reading; we get out of the habit of magic; we get out of the habit of immersing ourselves in storytelling.” Burton’s solution was to bring an entertaining show about the magic of reading to the TV screen, for children to discover all the adventures books could take them on.

Then in 2017, he started a podcast, LeVar Burton Reads, which has been described as “Reading Rainbow for adults.” In each episode, Burton reads a short story by an author like Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman or Ken Liu. Burton believes that his generation is leaving scads of problems for the next generation to deal with. “One of the reasons I’m doing this podcast is to encourage y’all to devote time to being in your imaginations. You’re going to need that imaginative genius that can only come when you have a vibrant relationship with your imagination. You’re going to need all of those faculties to solve these very difficult problems.”

And speaking of the next generation, in 1986 Burton was cast in a little sequel series called Star Trek: The Next Generation. When signing aboard the USS Enterprise, most of the cast believed this would be a one-year mission, ending up as a forgotten flop. 35 years later, it can safely be said that they’ve been proven wrong.

Burton’s character, Geordi La Forge, started out as a helmsman, flying the starship much more than twice as high as a butterfly in the sky. The character was blind, inspired by a quadriplegic fan of the original Star Trek, George La Forge, who died in 1975. Geordi was blind from birth, and used a high-tech Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement (VISOR for short) to see. The device didn’t allow him to see better than other people necessarily, just more. In fact, the VISOR was made from a plastic banana clip-style barrette, designed for holding women’s hair together. On screen, it helped Geordi to see, but on set, Levar found the opposite to be true. Not only was it difficult to see through, but for an actor used to emoting with his eyes, having an appliance literally screwed onto his head which was designed to cover those eyes meant that he was bereft of one of his most important acting tools. By the second season, there was some discussion about giving La Forge implants so he could jettison the VISOR. Despite a brief scene between him and Doctor Pulaski in one episode to set up the idea, he would have to wait until Star Trek: First Contact was released eight years later to finally shed the device.

Season two of TNG brought several changes to the show. One of those changes was La Forge’s rank and uniform. No longer a Lieutenant Junior Grade, sitting at the helm, Geordi was now a full Lieutenant, having been promoted to Chief Engineer. This is how most people remember the character best, since he remained in the position all the way through the final movie, Star Trek: Nemesis.

During his time on the show, Burton joined the (unofficial) Star Trek directors’ school, following in the footsteps of Jonathan Frakes. Through the auspices of Trek’s producers and creative team, those show regulars who wished to (Frakes, Brent Spiner, Patrick Stewart and Burton) would sit in on Production Meetings, shadow directors and generally watch how the behind-the-scenes stuff was accomplished. Burton directed the episodes “Second Chances” and “The Pegasus” in TNG’s sixth and seventh seasons, respecively, then went on to many other directing gigs, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, as well as Charmed, JAG, Las Vegas and NCIS: New Orleans and Hawaii.

Between authoring three books, directing episodes for various series and making apearances in-person and on-screen, Burton’s career is too extensive to fit into a single article. But any career in the arts, no matter how successful you are, comes with a disappointment or two along the way. In 2021, Burton served as the host of the long-running gameshow Jeopardy! His appearance was considered an audition for the permanent position, left empty by the death of Alex Trebek the year before. He ultimately lost the gig, but it has been announced that he will be host and executive producer of a new gameshow, Trivial Pursuit, based on the popular board game. He is also on the board of directors for the AIDS Research Alliance.

LeVar Burton, who turns 65 today, has been married for 30 years and has two children. Following in his mother’s footsteps, he has spent his life and career as an educator, teaching people of all ages the value of treating each other with respect and the benefits of reading. But don’t take my word for it. If you’d like to learn more from him, sign up for his MasterClass on The Power of Storytelling. And please join us at Daily Star Trek News in wishing him a very, very happy birthday.