LeVar Burton Reading Rainbow What was Reading Rainbow? The series ran for 23 seasons, What was Burtons role with the series? Burton was the host and executive producer Did the show win any awards or special recognition? over 200 broadcast awards What year did Reading Rainbow end? Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006,
Did the show win any other awards beside the broadcast awards?
Did the show Reading Rainbow win any other awards besides the broadcast awards?
Burton was the host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow starting in 1983 for PBS. The series ran for 23 seasons, making it one of the longest-running children's programs on the network. The series garnered over 200 broadcast awards over its run, including a Peabody Award and 26 Emmy Awards, 11 of which were in the Outstanding Children's Series category. Burton himself won 12 Emmy awards as host and producer of the show.  After Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006, Burton and his business partner, Mark Wolfe, acquired the global rights to the brand and formed RRKIDZ, a new media company for children. Reading Rainbow was reimagined as an all new application for the iPad in 2012, and was an immediate success, becoming the number-one educational application within 36 hours. At RRKIDZ, Burton serves as co-founder and curator-in-chief, ensuring that the projects produced under the banner meet the high expectations and trust of the Reading Rainbow brand.  On May 28, 2014, Burton and numerous coworkers from other past works started a Kickstarter campaign project to bring back Reading Rainbow. To keep with the changing formats to which young children are exposed, his efforts are being directed at making this new program web-based, following the success of the tablet application he helped create in recent years. His desire is to have the new Reading Rainbow be integrated into the classrooms of elementary schools across the country, and for schools in need to have free access. The Kickstarter campaign has since raised over $5 million, reaching triple its goal in only three days. CANNOTANSWER
Peabody Award
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr.  (born February 16, 1957) is an American actor, director, and children's television host. He is known for his roles as Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries Roots (1977), Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), and as host of the PBS Kids educational television series Reading Rainbow for more than 23 years (1983–2006), for which he has received 12 Daytime Emmy Awards, and a Peabody Award as host and executive producer of the show.

His other roles include Cap Jackson in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Donald Lang in Dummy (1979), Tommy Price in The Hunter (1980), which earned him an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture, and Martin Luther King Jr. in Ali (2001). Burton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards for his narration of the book The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1990, he was honored for his achievements in television with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Burton was chosen as the Grand Marshal of the 2022 Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, on October 5, 2021. He presided over the parade and the afternoon Rose Bowl Game on January 1, 2022.

Early life
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. was born in Landstuhl, West Germany. His mother, Erma Gene (née Christian), was a social worker, administrator, and educator, while his father and namesake was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps stationed at Landstuhl at the time of his son's birth. Burton and his two sisters were raised by his mother in Sacramento, California.

As a teen, Burton, who was raised Roman Catholic, entered St. Pius X Minor Seminary in Galt, California, intending to become a priest. At 17, questioning the Catholic faith, he changed his vocation to acting, and at 19, while an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, he won a starring role in the 1977 television miniseries Roots.

Career

Early work
Burton made his acting debut in 1976 with Almos' a Man, a film based on the Richard Wright short story "The Man Who Was Almost a Man," in which he stars alongside Madge Sinclair.

Roots
Burton's breakthrough role was as the young Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries Roots (1977), based on the novel of the same name by Alex Haley. Burton has described his first day playing Kunta as the start of his professional career. As a result of his performance, he was nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in a Drama or Comedy Series category.

He reprised the role of Kunta Kinte in the 1988 television film Roots: The Gift. When asked about the societal influence of Roots, Burton is quoted as saying: "It expanded the consciousness of people. Blacks and whites began to see each other as human beings, not as stereotypes. And if you throw a pebble into the pond, you're going to get ripples. I think the only constant is change, and it's always slow. Anything that happens overnight is lacking in foundation. Roots is part of a changing trend, and it's still being played out."

Reading Rainbow
Burton was the host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow starting in 1983 for PBS. The series ran for 23 seasons.

After Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006, Burton and his business partner, Mark Wolfe, acquired the global rights to the brand and formed RRKIDZ, a new media company for children.  Reading Rainbow was reimagined as an all new application for the iPad in 2012, and was an immediate success, becoming the number-one educational application within 36 hours. At RRKIDZ, Burton serves as co-founder and curator-in-chief, ensuring that the projects produced under the banner meet the high expectations and trust of the Reading Rainbow brand.

On May 28, 2014, Burton and numerous coworkers from other past works started a Kickstarter campaign project to bring back Reading Rainbow. To keep with the changing formats to which young children are exposed, his efforts are being directed at making this new program web based, following the success of the tablet application he helped create in recent years. His desire is to have the new Reading Rainbow be integrated into the classrooms of elementary schools across the country, and for schools in need to have free access. The Kickstarter campaign has since raised more than $5 million, reaching triple its goal in only three days.

In 2017, Burton was sued by the public broadcasting company WNED-TV for alleged copyright infringement for use of the Reading Rainbow brand in marketing the new iPad app and other online media. RRKIDZ later became known as LeVar Burton Kids and the iPad app, Skybrary.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

In 1986, Gene Roddenberry approached Burton with the role of the then Lieutenant Junior Grade Geordi La Forge in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. The character is blind but is granted "sight" through the use of a prosthetic device called a VISOR worn over his eyes. La Forge started out serving as the USS Enterprise's helmsman, and as of the show's second season, had become its chief engineer. At the time, Burton was considerably better known than Patrick Stewart in the United States, due to his roles in Roots and Reading Rainbow. When the show premiered, the Associated Press stated that Burton's role was essentially the "new Spock." In a 2019 interview, Burton laughed in disbelief at the idea, stating "that speculation never came to fruition."

Burton also portrayed La Forge in the subsequent feature films based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, from Star Trek Generations (1994) to Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).

He directed two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise.

Other appearances
Burton played a role as a visitor to Fantasy Island, guest star on “The Love Boat”, was a participant in Battle of the Network Stars, a guest of the Muppet Shows televised premiere party for the release of The Muppet Movie, and a frequent guest on several game shows.

In 1986, he appeared in the music video for the song "Word Up!" by the funk/R&B group Cameo.

In 1987, Burton played Dave Robinson, a journalist (sports writer), in the third season of Murder, She Wrote, episode 16 – "Death Takes a Dive", starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.

Burton accepted an invitation to host Rebop, a multicultural series designed for young people aged 9–15, produced by WGBH for PBS.

On television, Burton 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. He portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the 2001 film Ali. He also portrayed Detroit Tiger Ron LeFlore in the television movie One in a Million, The Ron LeFlore Story.

In 1992, a clip of Burton's voice was sampled by DC Talk for the track "Time is..." on their album Free at Last. The sample is at the very end of the song, in which Burton can be heard saying: "Whoa, wait a minute."
He has also lent his voice to several animated projects, including Kwame in the cartoon series Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990–1993) and The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1993–1996), Family Guy, Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles. Burton is on the audio version of The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Burton has been cast as voice actor for Black Lightning in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies DVD.

Burton appeared several times as a celebrity guest on the Dick Clark-hosted $25,000 and $100,000 Pyramids, from 1982 until 1988. Burton also was the strongest link in the special Star Trek episode of The Weakest Link. He defeated his final opponent Robert Picardo and won $167,500 for his charity, Junior Achievement of Southern California, a record for the show at that time and the largest amount won in any Celebrity Edition of the show (it was later surpassed by a $188,500 win in a "Tournament of Losers" episode).

He has made appearances in such sitcoms as Becker.

Burton is the host and executive producer of a documentary titled The Science of Peace, which was in production as of 2007. It investigates the science and technology aimed at enabling world peace, sometimes called peace science. The film explores some of the concepts of shared noetic consciousness, having been sponsored in part by the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

He appeared in an April Fool's episode of Smosh pretending to have taken over the channel and making various edits at popular Smosh videos.

He makes occasional appearances on This Week in Tech, where he is a self-proclaimed "nerd", and also participated in the Consumer Electronics Show 2010.

In 2010, he made an appearance on Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! as the ghost of himself in the episode "Greene Machine".

In February 2011, Burton made an appearance as himself on NBC's Community in the episode "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking", and then again in January 2014's "Geothermal Escapism".

Burton has appeared as a fictionalized, humorous version of himself on The Big Bang Theory, first appearing in the episode "The Toast Derivation", in which he almost attends a party thrown by Sheldon (before swearing off Twitter), in November 2012 in the episode "The Habitation Configuration", in which he appears on "Fun With Flags" in exchange for lunch and gas money, and again in the November 2014 episode "The Champagne Reflection", in which he returns for the 232nd episode of "Fun With Flags" in exchange for Sheldon deleting his contact details.

In 2012, he had a recurring role as dean Paul Haley on the TNT series Perception. For the second season (2013), he became part of the regular cast.

In 2014, he had a guest appearance in an introduction section for the 200th episode of Achievement Hunter's show, Achievement Hunter Weekly Update (AHWU). In May 2014, he appeared as a guest on the YouTube channel SciShow, explaining the science behind double, tertiary, and quaternary rainbows. Late in 2014, he had another guest appearance on a 24-hour Extra Life, a fundraising organization for Children's Miracle Network hospitals, stream by Rooster Teeth. Burton has also taped a recycling field trip for YouTube.

In 2017, Burton began a podcast, LeVar Burton Reads. Each episode features Burton reading a short story. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he continues to read on his podcast and also give live readings three times a week during a Twitter livestream focused at different time to different children, young adults, and adult audiences.

In November 2020, he appeared as himself on The Eric Andre Show. His segment was a callback to Lance Reddick's interview (2013) in which he mentioned LeVar by name and dressed as an amalgam of Kunta Kinte and Geordi La Forge.

Burton served as a guest host on Jeopardy! from July 26 to July 30, 2021. This came after a petition asking the show's producers to select him was signed by more than 250,000 fans. Unfortunately, the ratings were less than ideal due to tapering audience curiosity and forced viewership competition with NBC's coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which trampled syndicated shows across the board. 

Burton also teaches the "Power of Storytelling" in the MasterClass.

Directing
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Burton directed 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.

He has also directed episodes of Charmed, JAG, Las Vegas, and Soul Food: The Series, as well as the miniseries Miracle's Boys and the biopic The Tiger Woods Story. He also directed the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House starring Katey Sagal, Kevin Kilner and Jessica Steen. In August 2020, it was revealed that Burton will sit in the director's chair for Two-Front War from Lou Reda Productions, a multi-perspective docuseries will give "an emotionally raw look at the connection between the fight for civil rights in America and the struggle for equality of Black soldiers in Vietnam".

His first theatrical film direction was Blizzard (2003), for which he received a "Best of Fest" award from the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, and a Genie Award nomination for his work on the film's theme song, "Center of My Heart".

Burton is on the board of directors for the Directors Guild of America.

Personal life
LeVar Burton married Stephanie Cozart, a professional make-up artist, on October 3, 1992. Burton has two children, son Eian Burton Smith and daughter Michaela "Mica" Jean Burton. The family lives in Sherman Oaks, California.

Burton does not identify with any religion, saying: "I walked away from the seminary, I walked away from Catholicism, I walked away from organized religion because I felt that there was more for me to explore in the world, and that I could do that without adhering to one specific belief system or another."

In 2012, Burton joined the board of directors for the AIDS Research Alliance, a non-profit, medical research organization dedicated to finding a cure for AIDS.

In 2016, Burton was one of the five inaugural honorees to the Sacramento Walk of Stars. In 2019, Councilmember Larry Carr, representing the Meadowview neighborhood, led the renaming of Richfield Park to LeVar Burton Park in his honor. The park is in the Meadowview neighborhood, near the house where Burton and his sisters grew up.

Filmography

Awards and honors

Awards

Nominations
 1977 – Emmy – Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Performance in a Drama or Comedy Series – Roots (Part 1, "Kunta Kinte")
 1998, 2001, 2005 – Image Awards variously for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series and Outstanding Youth or Children's Series/Special — Reading Rainbow (both as Self and as Executive Producer)
 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1999 – Daytime Emmy – Outstanding Children's Series – Reading Rainbow (Executive Producer)
 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 – Daytime Emmy – Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series – Reading Rainbow (Self)
 2004 – Genie Award – Best Achievement in Music-Original Song – Blizzard (Co-composer "Center of My Heart")
 2006 – Black Reel Award – Best Director-Television – Miracle's Boys

Wins
 1990 – Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7030 Hollywood Boulevard for television achievement
 1992 – Peabody Award – Reading Rainbow (as executive producer of episode, "The Wall")
 1994, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2003 – Image Award – variously for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series and Outstanding Youth or Children's Series/Special – Reading Rainbow (both as Self and as Executive Producer)
 2000 – Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album – The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.
 1990, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 – Daytime Emmy – Outstanding Children's Series – Reading Rainbow (Executive Producer)
 2001, 2002 – Daytime Emmy –  Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series – Reading Rainbow (Self)
 2003 – Television Critics Association Award – Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming – Reading Rainbow (Executive Producer)
 2004 – Chicago International Children's Film Festival – Best of Fest – Blizzard (Director)

Books
 Aftermath, 1997, 
 The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm, 2014, 
 A Kids Book About Imagination, 2021,

See also

References

Further reading
 Nishikawa, Kinohi. "LeVar Burton". The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Ed. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey Jr., 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 219.

External links

 
 RRKIDZ (Reading Rainbow) – LeVar Burton, Co-Founder, Curator-in-Chief
 Burton / Wolfe Entertainment (production company)
 
 
 
 

1957 births
African-American male actors
African-American television directors
African-American television personalities
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American television directors
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Former Roman Catholics
Grammy Award winners
Living people
Male actors from California
Male actors from Sacramento, California
PBS people
Reading Rainbow
USC School of Dramatic Arts alumni
People from Landstuhl
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
HIV/AIDS activists
African-American religious skeptics
20th-century African-American people
21st-century African-American people
The 7th Annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards was held on May 7, 1994, at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, California. The awards show was hosted by Joey Lawrence and Candace Cameron, with Marc Weiner hosting the east coast portion of the show from Universal Studios Florida. This ceremony was the first KCA broadcast since the 1992 show as Nickelodeon did not produce any KCA show in 1993.

Performers

The cast of Roundhouse performed during the opening of the show.

Winners and nominees
Winners are listed first, in bold. Other nominees are in alphabetical order.

Movies

Television

Music

Sports

Miscellaneous

Nick U.K.'s Favorite New Performer
 Let Loose

Special Recognition

Hall of Fame
 Michael Jordan
 Janet Jackson
 Whoopi Goldberg

References

External links
 

Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards
Kids' Choice Awards
Kids' Choice Awards
Kids' Choice Awards
1994 in Los Angeles Star Awards 2015 (also SA2015, Chinese: 红星大奖2015) is a double television award ceremony which is held in Singapore. It is part of the annual Star Awards organised by MediaCorp for free-to-air channel MediaCorp Channel 8. SA2015 is broadcast live on Channel 8, on 19 April 2015 and 26 April 2015.

The ceremony saw The Joy Truck II and The Journey: Tumultuous Times, became the biggest winning variety and drama series respectively.

Programme details

Winners and nominees
Unless otherwise stated, the winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface.

Show 1 (加利谷闪耀星光)
The first show, titled "加利谷闪耀星光" (The Starlight of Caldecott), was broadcast on 19 April 2015.

Professionally Judged Awards 

 Lim was absent during the ceremony due to illness; Kang Lay See represented the award on his behalf.

Awards Eligible for Voting

All Time Favourite Artiste
This award is a special achievement award given out to artiste(s) who have achieved a maximum of 10 popularity awards over 10 years. Top 10 winning years the recipients were awarded together are highlighted in boldface.

Awards Eligible for Voting

Top 10 awards 
Since the 2012 awards, results for the Top 10 Most Popular Male and Female Artistes were determined by telepoll and online voting, each carrying a 50% weightage towards the final results. The telepoll lines were announced, and opened on 9 March 2015 in its first public event held at VivoCity. The voting closed on 26 April at 8:30 pm, during the second award ceremony.

The nominees are listed in telepoll line order. The results of the Top 10 awards are not in any rank order.

Post Show Party Awards (红星大奖2015庆功宴)

Statistics 
Shows are ordered based on number of nominations, release date and type order.

Drama series nominations:

Drama series awards:

Variety / info-ed series nominations:

Variety / info-ed / current affairs series awards:

Current affairs series nominations:

Presenters and performers 
The following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers.

Show 1

Show 2

Ceremony information

Award Information
This was the last Star Awards ceremony to be held in the Caldecott Hill before the show moved to the new campus in Mediapolis@one-north. As such, the Chinese subtitles for both ceremonies referenced Caldecott (加利谷).
It was also the first Star Awards ceremony since 2009 the ceremony was not held on a location outside Mediacorp studios. 
As of the most recent ceremony in 2021, this was the last time Professional & Technical Awards were presented on one show in a two-show format (not counting preludes in 2017). Although the following year's ceremony was also a two-show, the two-show format was revamped to focus on the variety and drama categories, while Professional & Technical Awards were awarded outside the show, for the first time since 2009.
It was also the last Star Awards ceremony to feature long-time announcer John Kuek due to his retirement.

Consecutive and records in award categories, first in Top 10
The Joy Truck became the third variety program to win its second Best Variety Programme award, after City Beat and Say It If You Dare.
Rui En became the sixth All-Time Favourite Artiste to win the award with ten consecutive Top 10 Female Favourite Artiste wins. Ng, along with Qi Yuwu, were conferred the said award in the following year's ceremony.
The previous recipients to do so were Fann Wong and Xie Shaoguang, both occurring in the 2005 ceremony.
Jeanette Aw set a record on winning the most awards for an individual at seven, among which were Most Popular Regional Artiste Awards (three, for Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia), Social Media Award, Favourite Female Character, Favourite Onscreen Couple (Drama) (with Zhang Zhenhuan, who they also won all the Favourite category awards) and All-Time Favourite Artiste (with Vivian Lai). 
Carrie Wong, Jayley Woo, Shane Pow and Youyi) were nominated for the Top 10 voting category for the first time.
Pow and Wong, along with Shaun Chen, Ian Fang and Julie Tan, won their first Top 10 Favourite Artiste award.
The last time Felicia Chin nominated (and won) for the Top 10 Most Favourite Female Artiste was 2010; she switched to part-time acting to study for a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in the NUS Business School, quit her studies and has since returned to acting.
The Best Drama Serial nomination for the third season of C.L.I.F. now tied The Unbeatables for its most nominations for its category at three. With the loss to The Journey: Tumultuous Times (which became the eighth drama to receive a second nomination), C.L.I.F. now holds the record for the most nominations without a win.
Star Awards won its fifth consecutive "Best Variety Special" award, part of the five-win streak since the show won her first award in 2010 until its next loss in 2016.

Awards categories 
This was the first show to introduce the category for Tokyo Bust Express Sexy Babe Award.

Controversies 
Professional and programme awards will only be given out when there are at least 10 candidates from 2014 onwards. Even though Channel 8 News & Current Affairs already had ten news presenters by the end of 2014, both the Best News Presenter award and Best Current Affairs Presenter award did not return for a second consecutive year, while the Best Newcomer returned after being absent last year.
The Best Newcomer will be absent again in 2016 and 2017, but returned in 2018.
After Jeanette Aw won six voting-based awards in Show 1, she expressed her intention to withdraw from voting-based award categories in the future. Speaking to the media after the ceremony, Aw said that the move is due to her concern about rabid fans who left messages online saying that this could impede other potential contenders if she did not win enough awards. However, it can be seen that voting for Star Awards 2016 Favourite Female Character for The Journey: Our Homeland and The Dream Makers II did not remove her from the voting list. Mediacorp quotes that these awards are determined by online voting, and she still had to participate in both categories. Aw would go on to win the Favourite Female Character and Favourite Onscreen Couple (Drama) with Qi Yuwu for The Dream Makers II in the following year, which was the last time the Favourite categories were held.

Other trivia 
Jack Neo's comeback appearance as Liang Po Po in nearly 15 years.

Star Awards 2016 nominations
The 2015 ceremony was nominated for Best Variety Producer and Best Variety Special in the ceremony next year, but were lost to Love on the Plate 3 and GeTai Challenge, respectively; for the latter, the loss ended a five-win streak of winning the "Best Variety Special" since Star Awards 2010.

See also 
 List of variety and infotainment programmes broadcast by MediaCorp Channel 8
 MediaCorp Channel 8
 Star Awards

References 

Star Awards