LeVar Burton

LeVar Burton (1957-) is an African-American actor famous for starring as Starfleet engineer Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation and its subsequent films.

He first became famous for his Breakout Role as African slave Kunta Kinte in the 1977 miniseries Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley, before he went on to host the children's educational show Reading Rainbow from 1983 to 2006 (which he brought back as an app in 2014 after a wildly-successful Kickstarter campaign).

LeVar Burton provides examples of the following tropes:

• Black and Nerdy
• Doing It for the Art: He has stated in interviews that his visor on TNG was so uncomfortable he pretty much had a seven-year headache. That takes commitment to a role.
• Excited Kids' Show Host: He was a Type 3 on Reading Rainbow.
• I Am Not Spock: Played With. To many people, he will always be Geordi La Forge, but even before TNG, he was extremely noteworthy, having starred in Roots and hosting Reading Rainbow. In fact, when TNG first premiered, he was the biggest name in the cast (at least, in the US).
• Military Brat: He was born in Germany, where his father was serving as an Army sergeant.