LEVAR BURTON Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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LEVAR BURTON

Name: Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr.                                           
Born: 16 February 1957 Landstuhl, West Germany                                     
                                                                                   
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957, in Landstuhl, West       
Germany), professionally known as LeVar Burton, is an American actor, director     
and author who first came to prominence playing Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning
television miniseries Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley. He is also well-known
for his role of Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as the       
host of the PBS children's program Reading Rainbow.                                 
                                                                                   
Burton was the child of a U.S. military family and was born in West Germany at     
the U.S. Army Landstuhl Regional Medical Center while his father was stationed     
at a nearby military base. At the age of thirteen, he entered a seminary to         
become a priest. He is a graduate of University of Southern California's School     
of Theatre. He has a daughter, Michaela, born in 1992, with his wife Stephanie,     
and a son, Eian, born in 1980. Burton was awarded joint custody of his son after   
a paternity suit.                                                                   
                                                                                   
He is an avid poker player, and participant in the World Poker Tour.               
Currently living in Sherman Oaks, California, he and his wife Stephanie have       
worked to raise the awareness of treatments for infertility.