What?? LeVar Burton Reveals ‘Reading Rainbow’ Producers Tried to Block His Black Style

For 21 seasons, LeVar Burton came into our homes to inspire children’s love of reading as the host of the award-winning PBS series Reading Rainbow. On air from 1983 to 2006, the show racked up 26 Daytime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Children’s Series and Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series for Burton. It’s hard to imagine any other host sharing their favorite books on the show. But in a documentary about the popular series, Burton reveals the drama he dealt with behind the camera about his appearance.

In the documentary, “Butterfly in the Sky,” which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, “Reading Rainbow” producer Cecily Truett Lancit recalled some of the tense conversations around Burton growing a mustache.

“We produced the pilot, and LeVar did not have any facial hair,” she said. “The first season came around, and I think it was Jill [Gluckson] who called, and she said, ‘Okay, LeVar’s got a mustache.’ ‘Well, tell him to shave it!’ Ding ding ding ding! LeVar doesn’t want to shave the mustache.”

Burton, now 67 years old, said that although the producers wanted him to keep his look consistent throughout the seasons, he was young and determined to show up as himself for every single episode – even when he got his ear pierced.

“I was young and I was going through different fads. I had this earring. I had fallen in love with this woman, and she talked me into getting my ear pierced. At the time, it was problematic to Larry [Lanict, series producer] and Cecily, because they saw the changes that I was going through physically and the choices I was making as an impediment to the continuity,” he said. “I became very adamant that since they had hired me, then what they got was me.”

Burton added that as a Black man in America, maintaining his identity was especially important to him at that time.

“I was more interested in my authenticity,” he said. “I didn’t care how anybody else perceived it. I was very, very insistent upon all the outward manifestations of myself being okay. I’d been told my whole life by society that there was something intrinsically wrong with me or undeserving of me because of the color of my skin, and I think that made me recalcitrant to give in.”