Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957, in Landstuhl, West Germany), professionally known as LeVar Burton, is a multiple Daytime Emmy Award and Grammy Award winning 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.