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LeVar Burton, 69, on the Power of Storytelling
The ‘Roots,’ ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Reading Rainbow’ star talks about his new memoir, love and what Fred Rogers taught him
“My commitment these days is to advance the cause of storytelling,” says LeVar Burton, photographed in Los Angeles for AARP in May 2026.
Ian Maddox
While LeVar Burton, 69, was working on his upcoming memoir, Take My Word for It (out in November 2026), the actor and beloved Reading Rainbow host discovered a greater arc to his life. From his starring role in 1977’s hit miniseries Roots to portraying a crew member on TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994, “I have been able to portray the Black experience in America,” he says, “from our enslavement to space flight.”
“Take My Word for It: A Memoir” reveals how Burton represents the Black American experience through his roles.
Courtesy Random House
How many actors can make that claim? Born in Germany and raised in California by his mother, Burton found a special popularity in 1983, when he joined the children’s show Reading Rainbow as its first host. The show ran on PBS for 23 years, netting 26 Daytime Emmys (Burton himself won 12, plus a Peabody Award). He went on to host the LeVar Burton Reads podcast from 2017 to 2024 and remains a passionate advocate for literacy as a cornerstone for all learning.
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The father of two lives in Los Angeles with his wife of 33 years, Stephanie, a makeup artist (the pair met on a TV-movie set). Today, Burton hosts the game show Trivial Pursuit on the CW and has a role in the upcoming One Night Only, a rom-com about an alternative New York City where premarital sex is legal only one night a year. He sat down with AARP to talk about roles, representation, his marriage and why storytelling and truth matter to him more than ever.
A deep desire to teach
On the 10th anniversary of “Reading Rainbow” in 1993, Burton shows off books from the show’s first decade.
PBS/Courtesy Everett Collection
The spiritual DNA that we inherit has just as much bearing on who we become as the physical. My mother was the first person in her family to graduate from college. Her first career was as an English teacher. My elder sister, Letitia, her two daughters and my son are all in the education business. I am too; I just have a different classroom. It is unlikely that I could have become anyone else.
Finding a second home among books
Imagine being a single woman raising three kids in Northern California and having to worry every single day about the safety of your Black children in a white world. In her mind, the safest place we could be was at home. So when the bookmobile came to our neighborhood, it was carte blanche: “Yes! Go! Have at it!” It was freedom. It didn’t just break up the monotony; it brought new stories into the house.
Step into the future when it calls
I was 13 when I entered the St. Pius X seminary. I planned to be a priest. But then a few years later, when I was beginning to question Catholic dogma, a teacher at Pius put me in the T.S. Eliot play Murder in the Cathedral. We did a couple of performances in the cathedral in Sacramento, and after I stood in the pulpit playing a priest giving a benediction, even though I was just a teenage actor, people in the audience blessed themselves! And I thought, There’s power in this. There is an opportunity for connection. You’ve got to take the step that’s in front of you. The next step will reveal itself.
Use challenges to build skills
On Star Trek, putting on the visor took away 90 percent of my vision [Burton played blind helmsman Geordi La Forge]. And yet the job was to play somebody who could see more than everybody else. It was crazy, crazy. But I really worked on my voice and its ability to communicate emotion, whereas previously I had relied upon my eyes, as most actors do. It just forced me to expand my skill set.
Burton (with Patrick Stewart and Marina Sirtis) played blind helmsman Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Robbie Robinson/Paramount Television/Courtesy Everett Collection
Learning a life lesson from Mister Rogers
I was looking forward to meeting Fred Rogers at this PBS party. I would get to meet the man behind the Mister Rogers mask. There was no mask. That was Fred. I used to read a lot of biographies of saints when I was a kid. And I genuinely believe Fred Rogers was an enlightened being. A literal bodhisattva. In our conversation about kids, he said, “Don’t be afraid to be your authentic self. That’s who they need.” It was about being vulnerable enough to connect.
Leave nothing unspoken
My father passed recently. We had a pretty complex relationship. Once he and my mom split up, I didn’t have any contact with him at all until Roots came out a decade later. You wanted your dad on the Boy Scout father-son campout, and I didn’t have that. I was taken by a friend of the family, Mr. Bruce, but Mr. Bruce brought his sons, and I wanted my dad. There was just a lot that I needed to work out, so about five years ago I started conversations with my father so that there was nothing left unspoken between the two of us. And when I got the news that he was gone, I felt complete. I had got it done.
Why storytelling matters now more than ever
Storytelling is the lingua franca of civilization. It’s under assault. Tennessee just banned Roots in high school libraries because the rape of Kizzy supposedly makes it inappropriate for high school students. Our resistance to the truth will only continue to fester and blister and produce the ugliest of sores. So my commitment these days is to advance the cause of storytelling.
Roadblocks can lead to new paths
I started watching Jeopardy! when I was in the third grade. When I did not get the hosting job after Alex Trebek left, I was like, What’s going on here? I had thought hosting it was part of my destiny. Then Trivial Pursuit called and said, “We want to turn it into a game show.” Which is my own show: I’m an executive producer, and my company, LeVar Burton Entertainment, is a part of the development team.
Embrace the demands — and rewards — of love
My longest relationship before I met my wife was one year. I didn’t understand the demands of love, as well as the rewards. I had to allow Stephanie to teach me what love is, because I didn’t really know. It’s not resisting. It’s lowering the guard. That’s why I engaged in all of those different modalities when I was younger, from fire-walking with Tony Robbins, to jumping out of airplanes, to going to a sweat lodge retreat. Staying married has been its own firewalk, its own jumping out of planes.
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