I was looking for something German and here is Dick Brave. Actually, he is a singer called Sascha. Then one day he decided to change his personality and became Dick Brave for a while - a Canadian rock'n'roll singer. At that time, he took a break from his singing career and just wanted to do a Christmas concert for some friends. He came up with the name Dick Brave and the Backbeats when he saw a poster of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
and since we are at SCH , here is RICHARD TAUBER with a lied by SCHUBERT , also some home movie clips and a tribute by the great german(actually born in hungary) actress ELISABETH BERGNER .
she , her husband as well as richard wagner all had to flee from persecution in germany - they were JEWS !
what madness - what great loss to germany !
even today it is difficult to understand the madness that overtook germany at that time !
what great shame ....
we have a re-mastered cd of some of TAUBER's great songs - what a lush voice he had !
so he still gives us great pleasure today !
Well, my goodness, WA2K audience. Everyone is either in Hawaii or on the French Riviera.
Today is one of my favorite poets birthday.
Juke Box Love Song
I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.
Langston Hughes
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edgarblythe
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Sat 16 Feb, 2008 09:27 am
The missus and I are house sitting for Jean, my daughter. I won't be posting songs from here. Will be home Sunday evening.
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Letty
1
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Sat 16 Feb, 2008 01:46 pm
Have a great weekend, edgar. We will miss you on our wee cyber radio.
Hey, folks, Monday is president's day in the U.S. So perhaps we can honor two of them with one video. I read somewhere that William Jefferson Clinton may have a genetic link to Thomas and Sally.
Edgar Bergen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Edgar John Bergren
Born February 16, 1903(1903-02-16)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died September 30, 1978 (aged 75)
Las Vegas, Nevada
Show The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show
Edgar John Bergen (February 16, 1903 - September 30, 1978) was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.
Biography
Early life
Bergen was born Edgar John Bergen in Chicago, Illinois, to a Swedish family and grew up in Decatur, Michigan. He taught himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet when he was eleven. A few years later he commissioned Chicago woodcarver Theodore Mack to sculpt a likeness of a rascally Irish newspaperboy he knew. The head went on a puppet named Charlie McCarthy, who became Bergen's lifelong sidekick. At age sixteen, he came to Chicago, where he attended Lake View High School and worked at a silent movie house.
Radio
His first performances were in vaudeville and one-reel movie shorts, but his real success was on the radio. He and Charlie were seen at a New York party by Elsa Maxwell for Noel Coward, who recommended them for an engagement at the famous Rainbow Room. It was there that two producers saw Bergen and Charlie perform. They then recommended them for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallee's program. The appearance was so successful that the next year they were given their own show. Under various sponsors, they were on the air from December 17, 1937 to July 1, 1956. The popularity of a ventriloquist on radio, when one could see neither the dummies nor his skill, surprised and puzzled many critics, then and now. However, it was Bergen's skill as an entertainer and vocal performer, and especially his characterization of Charlie, that carried the show over. Luckily, many of the shows have survived and are available for audiences today to experience the phenomenon firsthand. Bergen's success on radio was paralleled in the UK by Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews.
For the radio program, Bergen developed other characters, notably the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the man-hungry Effie Klinker. The star, however, was Charlie, who was always presented as a child (albeit in top hat, cape, and monocle) - a debonair, girl-crazy, child-about-town. As a child, and a wooden one at that, Charlie could get away with double entendre that adult humans could not under broadcast standards of the day.
Charlie: "May I have a kiss good-bye?"
Dale Evans: "Well, I can't see any harm in that!"
Charlie: "Oh. I wish you could. A harmless kiss doesn't sound very thrilling."
Similar lines given to Mae West in a sketch on the show broadcast December 12, 1937, resulted in her fifteen-year broadcasting ban. "Charles, I remember our date and have the splinters to prove it."
Charlie's feud with W. C. Fields was a regular feature of the show.
W.C. Fields: "Well, Charlie McCarthy, the woodpecker's pinup boy."
W.C. Fields: "I love children. I can remember when, with my own little unsteady legs, I toddled from room to room."
Charlie: "When was that? Last night?"
W.C. Fields: "Quiet, Wormwood, or I'll whittle you down to a coathanger."
W.C. Fields: "Tell me, Charles, is it true that your father was a gate-leg table?"
Charlie: "If it is, your father was under it."
W.C. Fields: "Why, you stunted spruce, I'll throw a japanese beetle on you."
Charlie: "Why, you bar-fly you, I'll stick a wick in your mouth, and use you for an alcohol lamp!"
Charlie: "Pink elephants take aspirin to get rid of W. C. Fields."
W.C. Fields: "Step out of the sun Charles. You may come unglued.
Charlie: "Mind if I stand in the shade of your Nose?"
Bergen was not the most technically skilled ventriloquist - Charlie McCarthy frequently twitted him for moving his lips?-but Bergen's sense of comedic timing was superb, and he handled Charlie's snappy dialogue with aplomb. Bergen's wit in creating McCarthy's striking personality and that of his other characters was the making of the show. The fact that Bergen was widely popular for a ventriloquism act on radio (where the trick of "throwing his voice" was not visible) indicates that his appeal was primarily the personality he applied to his characters.
Bergen and McCarthy are sometimes credited with "saving the world" because, on the night of October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles performed his War of the Worlds radio play that panicked many listeners, most of the American public had instead tuned in to Bergen and McCarthy on another station and never heard Welles's play. Conversely, it has also been theorized that Bergen inadvertently contributed to the hysteria. When the musical portion of Bergen's show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, aired approximately twelve minutes into the show, many listeners switched stations and found the War of the Worlds presentation already underway, with a realistic sounding reporter detailing terrible events.
Other media
In addition to his work as a ventriloquist, Bergen was also an actor and comic strip creator. He appeared as the shy Norwegian suitor in I Remember Mama (1948). He also appeared in Captain China (1949) and Don't Make Waves (1965). He created the syndicated comic strip Mortimer & Charlie, which ran in 1939.
Bergen and his alter-ego McCarthy appeared together with top billing in several films, including the Technicolor extravaganza The Goldwyn Follies (1938), opposite The Ritz Brothers. That year they also appeared in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man with W. C. Fields. At the height of their popularity in 1938, Bergen was presented an Honorary Oscar (in the form of a wooden Oscar stauette) for his creation of Charlie McCarthy.
in the film Stage Door Canteen (1943) with Mortimer SnerdOther film roles for the team include Look Who's Laughing (1941) and Here We Go Again (1942), both with Fibber McGee and Molly. Later Bergen and McCarthy were featured in Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and much later in The Muppet Movie (1979). Bergen died shortly after completing his scenes, marking it as Bergen's last appearance; the film was dedicated to him.
In addition to his work in radio and film, Bergen also made numerous appearances on television during his career. In a Thanksgiving special sponsored by Coca-Cola in 1950, the new character Podine Puffington was introduced. This saucy Southern belle was as tall as a real woman, in contrast to Bergen's other sit-on-the-knee sized characters. Bergen also hosted the television show Do You Trust Your Wife? in 1956, later to be replaced by Johnny Carson. Bergen continued to appear regularly on television in the 1960s. For example, he did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday night CBS TV program.
Bergen appeared as Grandpa Walton in the original The Waltons movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971). The part was played by Will Geer in the subsequent series. Throughout the run of The Waltons - which took place in the late 1930s through the 1940s - the voices of Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were sporadically heard from the Walton family's radio, as family members regularly tuned in that program.
Death
Edgar Bergen died of kidney disease in Las Vegas, Nevada, aged 75. He is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. He was elected to the Radio Hall of Fame in 1990, the same year that The Charlie McCarthy Show was selected as an honored program. It is said that Charlie McCarthy died along with Bergen: "Since retiring to the Smithsonian Institution in 1978, Charlie has uttered not one, single, solitary word." [1]
Family
Edgar Bergen met Frances Westerman during a radio program when he was 39 and she was only 19. Noticing Westerman in the audience, Bergen asked to meet the young fashion model, who was known as Frances Westcott during her modeling career. The two were married on 28 June 1945, and they remained married until Bergen's death in 1978. They were the parents of actress Candice Bergen, whose first performances were on Bergen's radio show, and Kris Bergen. Frances Bergen died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on October 2, 2006, aged 84, from undisclosed causes.[2]
References in popular culture
The Looney Tunes character Beaky Buzzard, known for his goofy grin, was based on Mortimer Snerd. Bob Clampett often referred to Beaky as the "Snerd Bird."
In Radio Days, young Joe's (Seth Green) Uncle Abe (Josh Mostel) and Aunt Ceil (Renee Lippin) have an argument over an unnamed Bergen's radio act; Abe is driven crazy by the thought of a ventriloquist over the radio ("How can you tell his lips aren't moving?!")
A Charlie McCarthy doll figures into the storyline of The Rainmaker (1997), the film based on the John Grisham novel.
An annoyed character in the movie Cabin Boy, says to Chris Elliot's character, "Get out of my face, you half-assed Edgar Bergen."
In The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind, p. 213, it is said that "Cheney's nickname inside CIA was 'Edgar.' As in Bergen. The President would, by implication, be in the Charlie McCarthy role. This isn't fair, but it is at least half true."
In The Waltons pilot special "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story", Mary Ellen, in a sarcastic response to one of her younger sisters if there is a Santa Claus, curtly replies "Sure there is. AND I'M CHARLIE McCARTHY!!" Coincidentally enough, McCarthy's partner, Edgar Bergen, was in that same TV film as Grandpa.
Bill Cosby compared the students of special education to Mortimer Snerd in a monologue entitled "Special Class" from his 1966 album, Wonderfulness.
Ed O'Neill's character Bill Jacks, in episode six of John From Cincinnati, refers to John Monad's behaviour as being a Charlie McCarthy imitation.
In Little Tough Guys in Society, David Gorcey and Billy Benedict briefly do an act where they address each other as "Mr. Bergen" and "Charlie."
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bobsmythhawk
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Sat 16 Feb, 2008 02:22 pm
Vera-Ellen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Vera Ellen Westmeier Rohe
Born February 16, 1921(1921-02-16)
Norwood, Ohio
Died August 30, 1981 (aged 60)
Los Angeles, California
Spouse(s) Robert Hightower (1941-1946)
Victor Rothschild (1954-1966)
Vera-Ellen (February 16, 1921 - August 30, 1981) was an American actress and stage and film dancer, principally celebrated for her filmed dance partnerships with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor.
She was born Vera Ellen Westmeier Rohe in Norwood, Ohio to Martin Rohe and Alma Catherine Westmeier, both descended from German immigrants.[1] She began dancing at the age of 9 and quickly became very proficient. At 16, she was a winner on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, and entered upon a professional career.
In 1939, Vera-Ellen made her Broadway theatre debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein musical Very Warm For May at the age of 18. She became one of the youngest Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, although she was not tall. This led to roles on Broadway in Panama Hattie, By Jupiter, and A Connecticut Yankee, where she was spotted by Samuel Goldwyn, who cast her opposite Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo in the film Wonder Man (1945).
She appeared in several films, including White Christmas (1954), On the Town (1949), the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" dance in Words and Music (1948) -- the last two with Gene Kelly. Vera-Ellen was also one of the stars in the last Marx Brothers film, Love Happy (1949). She took top billing alongside Fred Astaire in Three Little Words (1950) and The Belle of New York (1952), with Donald O'Connor in Call Me Madam (1953), and in Let's Be Happy (1957). During the 1950s, she was reputed to have the "smallest waist in Hollywood".[2] and is believed to have suffered from anorexia nervosa.[1] She retired from the screen in 1957.
Vera-Ellen was married twice. Her first husband was fellow dancer Robert Hightower, whom she was married to from 1941 to 1946.[3] Her second husband, from 1954 to 1966, was millionaire Victor Rothschild. Both marriages ended in divorce. While married to Rothschild, she gave birth to a daughter, Victoria Ellen Rothschild, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 1963. Following this traumatic event Vera-Ellen further withdrew from public life.
She died of cancer at her home in California at the age of 60 in 1981.
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bobsmythhawk
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Sat 16 Feb, 2008 02:27 pm
Sonny Bono
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from California's 44th district
In office
January 3, 1995 - January 5, 1998
Final term completed by widow Mary Bono
Born February 16, 1935(1935-02-16)
Detroit, Michigan
Died January 5, 1998 (aged 62)
South Lake Tahoe, California
Political party Republican
Spouse Mary Bono
Susie Coelho
Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre)
Donna Rankin
Religion Roman Catholic/Scientologist
Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono (February 16, 1935(1935-02-16) - January 5, 1998) was an American record producer, singer, actor, and politician whose career spanned over three decades.
Biography
Entertainment career
Born in Detroit, Michigan to Italian immigrants Jean and Santo,[1] Bono began his music career working for the legendary record producer Phil Spector in the early 1960s as a promotion man, percussionist and "gofer." One of his earliest songwriting efforts was "Needles and Pins." Later in the same decade, he achieved commercial success, along with his then-wife Cher, as part of the singing duo Sonny and Cher. Bono wrote, arranged, and produced a number of hit records with singles like "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On," although Cher received more attention. Sonny and Cher starred in a popular television variety show, The Sonny and Cher Show, which ran on CBS from 1971 to 1974.
Bono continued his acting career, doing bit roles in such shows as Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. He played the part of mad bomber Joe Seluchi in Airplane II: The Sequel and the part of Franklin Von Tussle in John Waters' Hairspray. In the film Men In Black, Bono is one of several oddball celebrities seen on a wall of video screens that monitor extra-terrestrials living among us.
Political career
Bono entered politics after experiencing great frustration with local government bureaucracy in trying to open a restaurant in Palm Springs, California. With conservative talk radio host Marshall Gilbert as his campaign manager (and later as the godfather of his two children by his wife, Mary), Bono placed a successful bid to become the new mayor of Palm Springs. He was instrumental in making the city more business-friendly and in spearheading the creation of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, now held each year in Bono's memory. He also attempted to have Marines banned from the city.[citation needed]
After unsuccessfully running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 1992, Bono was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 to represent California's 44th District. He was one of 12 co-sponsors of a House bill extending copyright.[2] Although that bill was never voted on in the Senate, a similar Senate bill was passed after his death and named the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in his honor.
He championed the restoration of the Salton Sea, bringing the giant lake's plight to national attention. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich made a public appearance and speech at the shore of the lake on Bono's behalf.
In their book Tell Newt to Shut Up, David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf credit Bono with being the first person to recognize Gingrich's public relations problems in 1995. Drawing on his long experience as a celebrity and entertainment producer, Bono (according to Maraniss and Weisskopf) recognized that Gingrich's status had changed from politician to celebrity, and that Gingrich was not making allowances for that change:
"You're a celebrity now," he told Gingrich. "The rules are different for celebrities. I know it. I've been there. I've been a celebrity. I used to be a bigger celebrity. But let me tell you, you're not being handled right. This is not political news coverage. This is celebrity status. You need handlers. You need to understand what you're doing. You need to understand the attitude of the media toward celebrities."
Maraniss and Weisskopf go on to say that Gingrich did not heed Bono's advice.[citation needed] Gingrich was not interested in image for image sake, but rather in fulfilling his role as an elected leader.[citation needed]
Although a conservative, Bono's celebrity status and easy-going manner allowed him to develop friendships across party lines.
Sonny also had involvement with the hearings related to the Waco 'incident' on April 19, 1993. He was reported to have been extremely upset while watching a video of the attack on the compound. Apparently though, he only asked one question during the entire 10-day hearing, related to the dangers of CS gas to children.
Personal life
Bono married his first wife, Donna Rankin, on Nov. 3, 1954 and they had a daughter, Christine ("Christy"), born on June 24, 1958, before divorcing in 1962. Following that, Bono married Cher, a singer and entertainer; Bono and Cher had a daughter, Chastity Bono, on March 4, 1969. Six years later, in 1975, the couple divorced. Bono then married Susie Coelho, but divorced her in 1984. He married again in 1986 to the much younger Mary Whitaker. They had two children, Chesare Elan Bono (a son, born 1988) and Chianna Marie Bono (a daughter, born 1991). He became a Scientologist, partly because of the influence of Mimi Rogers, but stated that he was a Roman Catholic on all official documents, campaign materials, web sites, etc. Mary Bono also took Scientology courses.[3] When his daughter Chastity came out as a lesbian, he was more accepting than Cher was at first.[4]
Bono was a champion of the Salton Sea in southeastern California, where a park was named in his honor. The 2005 documentary film Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea[5] (narrated by John Waters) features Bono and documented the lives of the inhabitants of Bombay Beach, Niland, and Salton City, as well as the ecological issues associated with the Sea.
Death
On January 5, 1998, Bono died of injuries after striking a tree while skiing on the Nevada side of the Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California. He was 62 years old.
Bono's death came just days after Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident. Bono's widow, Mary, was elected to fill the remainder of the Congressional term. Despite her two marriages since his death, she continues to champion many of Sonny's causes, including the ongoing fight to save the Salton Sea.
His ex-wife, Cher, gave a tearful eulogy at Bono's funeral, after which the attendees sang the song "The Beat Goes On". His final resting place is Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, the same cemetery where Frank Sinatra is now interred. The epitaph on Bono's headstone reads: "And the beat goes on."[6]
Bono in popular culture
The rock band A have a song named "I Love Lake Tahoe" (featured on the A vs Monkey Kong album), which includes the line, "Yeah the trees are pretty wide / That's where Sonny Bono died". American pop singer Britney Spears covered "The Beat Goes On" later in the year that Bono died, in her debut album ...Baby One More Time.
The All Saints song "Never Ever" is dedicated to Bono's memory. Rapper Eminem has used Bono and the circumstances surrounding his death in several songs, including "Role Model" and "Who Knew." In the latter he raps, "Skibbedy-be-bop, a-Christopher Reeves/Sonny Bono, skis, horses and hittin' some trees."
A plaque near Dupont Circle in Washington D.C. reads: "In Memory of my friend Sonny Bono".[7]
Public Enemy mentioned Bono in their hit "Bring Tha Noize".
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bobsmythhawk
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Sat 16 Feb, 2008 02:32 pm
Margaux Hemingway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Margot Louise Hemingway
Born February 16, 1955
Portland, Oregon
Died July 1, 1996 (aged 41)
Santa Monica, California
Spouse(s) Erroll Wetson (1975-1978)
Bernard Foucher (1979-1987)
Margaux Louise Hemingway (February 16, 1955 - July 1, 1996) was an American model and film actress who appeared in several movies. She was born in Portland, Oregon, the sister of actress Mariel Hemingway and the granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway. In addition to Mariel Hemingway, she had another sister, Joan. She grew up on her grandfather's farm in Ketchum, Idaho.
Biography
Early life
Hemingway was named for the wine, Château Margaux, which her parents, Puck and Jack Hemingway (the son of Ernest), were drinking the night she was conceived. In later years, after giving up drinking alcohol, she spelled her name Margot. She struggled with a variety of disorders in addition to alcoholism, including bulimia and epilepsy. She allowed a video recording to be made of a therapy session related to her bulimia and it was broadcast on television. Due to dyslexia, she did not read many of the books her famous grandfather wrote. She once said, "I am not a Hemingway aficionado".
She appeared in the 1976 movie Lipstick alongside her sister Mariel. The bad reviews of her performance were made worse by the critics' adoration of 14-year-old Mariel.
Her first marriage, to Errol Wetson, ended in divorce. They met when, at 19, she accompanied her father to the Plaza Hotel in New York City on a business trip, and four months later she moved from Idaho to New York City to share Wetson's apartment. On the rebound, she married Venezuelan Bernard Foucher, and they lived in Paris for a year. She also divorced him in 1985 after six years, and the end of the marriage left her feeling suicidal. Like her grandfather, she experienced occasional bouts of clinical depression all through her life. After a skiing accident in 1984, she gained 75 pounds and became more and more depressed. In 1987, she checked into the Betty Ford Center. In 1994, she went to a psychiatric hospital in Idaho to recover from a depressive cycle.
Hemingway experienced familial dramas throughout her life. Her relationship with her mother, Puck, was fraught with tension, but they did reconcile prior to Puck's death from cancer in 1988. She also experienced intense competition with Mariel, her younger sister and a more famous actress. In the 1990s, Hemingway went forward with allegations that her godfather had molested her as a child, and her father, Jack, and stepmother, Angela, resented the allegations and stopped speaking to her. Angela told People magazine, "Jack and I did not talk to her for two years. She constantly lies. The whole family won't have anything to do with her. She's nothing but an angry woman."
She supported herself later in life by autographing her nude photos from Playboy magazine, and endorsing a psychic telephone hotline. She enjoyed yoga and meditation. The last year of her life, she was looking forward to hosting the outdoor adventure series "Wild Guide" on the Discovery Channel.
Death
On July 1, 1996, the day before the 35th anniversary of her grandfather's suicide, Hemingway was found dead in her studio apartment in Santa Monica, California at age 42. She had taken an overdose of phenobarbital, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's findings one month later. Though her death was ruled a suicide, Mariel Hemingway long disputed this finding. Mariel's husband, Steve Crisman, said, "This was the best I'd seen her in years. She had gotten herself back together." On a December 22, 2005 edition of Larry King Live, however, Mariel said she now accepts the fact that Margaux committed suicide.
Her remains were cremated and Margaux was inurned in the Hemingway family plot in the Ketchum Cemetery in Ketchum, Idaho.
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bobsmythhawk
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Sat 16 Feb, 2008 02:36 pm
LeVar Burton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr.
Born February 16, 1957 (1957-02-16) (age 50)
Landstuhl, West Germany
Other name(s) LeVar Burton
Spouse(s) Stephanie Cozart Burton
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.
Background
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.[1] Currently living in Sherman Oaks, California, he and his wife Stephanie have worked to raise the awareness of treatments for infertility.
Early career
Following on his Emmy-nominated work in Roots he was so well-recognized that he appeared virtually as himself in the late 1970s and early 1980s on a number of television shows that employed "name" actors in guest roles. Thus, largely on the back of a single performance in Roots part 1, he was a visitor to Fantasy Island, participant in Battle of the Network Stars, a guest of the Muppet Show's televised premiere party for the release of The Muppet Movie, and a frequent guest on several popular game shows of the day. During these earliest days of MTV, he even appeared on a music video called "Word Up!" by R&B band Cameo.
In a 1978 interview, Burton said, "after Roots, I did a lot of talk and game shows, and then I stopped. I didn't want to get over-exposed."[cite this quote] It was at this point that Burton accepted an invitation to host Rebop, a multicultural series designed for young people ages 9-13, produced by WGBH for PBS. Burton liked Rebop's goals of helping children of all cultures to communicate across cultural and racial lines. Burton said, "Kids can learn a lot through Rebop. They can see kids from a variety of backgrounds who live all over the country, and have the same problems growing up as they do."[citation needed]
As the 1980s progressed, he created and began to host and executively produce Reading Rainbow in 1983 for PBS.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
In 1986, Gene Roddenberry approached him with an offer of regular series work. Thus, a decade after he had become a celebrity, he joined the regular cast of a major television program for the first time. Burton began playing the role of the then Lieutenant Junior Grade Geordi La Forge in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. Geordi La Forge was the USS Enterprise's helmsman, and as of the second season, its Chief Engineer.
Burton has also portrayed La Forge in every feature film based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, beginning with Star Trek Generations in 1994 through to the most recent picture, 2002's Star Trek Nemesis.
Other appearances
Beyond his two most famous series, Burton has enjoyed a wide range of acting work, alternating between serious historical roles and fantastic fiction. It is the historical work that has garnered the most critical attention. On television, he has helped dramatize the last days of Jim Jones's suicide cult in Guyana, the life and times of Jesse Owens, and the life of the nine-year-old Booker T. Washington. More recently in theatres, he has played the character of Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 2001 film Ali.
He has also lent his voice to several animated projects. His most long-lived animated role is probably that of Kwame in the cartoon series Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990-1993) and The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1993-1996). However, he has also contributed to Family Guy, Batman: The Animated Series, and Gargoyles.
Burton appeared several times as a celebrity guest on the Dick Clark hosted $100,000 Pyramid, which ran from 1985-88.
Burton also was the strongest link in the special Star Trek Episode of The Weakest Link, winning $167,500 for his charity. His final opponent was Robert Picardo. It was a record for the show.
Burton is the voice that asks "What were the skies like when you were young?" on The Orb track "Little Fluffy Clouds", a sample from Reading Rainbow.
Directing
Like several other actors, Burton leveraged his regular role in Star Trek to launch his directing career. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, he would come to direct episodes for each of the various Star Trek series then in production. He has directed more Star Trek episodes than any other former regular cast member.
LeVar is on the board of directors for the Directors Guild Of America.
Burton is the only director to have contributed an episode to each of the four live-action Star Trek series which immediately followed after the original Star Trek.
Burton has also directed episodes of Charmed, JAG, and Soul Food: The Series, as well as the miniseries Miracle's Boys and the documentary The Tiger Woods Story.
His first foray into the world of theatrical film direction was a notable success. Not only did 2003's Blizzard garner him a "Best of Fest" award from the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, but he also picked up a Genie Award nomination for his work on the film's theme song, "Center of My Heart."
His most recent directorial project, "Reach For Me", will be in theaters in 2008.
