Star Trek Pin-up #40 FRAMED Levar Burton Chief Engineer Geordi Laforge

Description

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge is a character who appeared in all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and its four feature films. Portrayed by LeVar Burton, he served as helmsman of the USS Enterprise-D in the first season, then occupied the role of the chief engineer for the rest of the series and in the films. La Forge has been blind since birth and uses technological devices that allow him to see – a VISOR in the series and the first film, replaced by ocular prosthetic implants in the last three films.

“Lt. (J.G.) Geordi La Forge: An away-mission regular who is racially black and birth-defect blind – although with prosthetic super-high tech artificial “eyes” which can detect electromagnetic waves from all the way from raw heat to high frequency ultra-violet, making other crewpersons seem hopelessly “blind” by comparison. His closest friend is Data, and the two of them are particularly efficient when working together on away missions. Because of his “eyes”, Geordi can also perform some of the functions of a tricorder.” Gene Roddenberry, Geordi La Forge’s description, Star Trek: The Next Generation Writer/Director’s Guide, March 23, 1987.

Gene Roddenberry created the character in honor of George La Forge, a quadriplegic fan of the original Star Trek series who died in 1975.3 A casting call was placed to agency for the role, which described him as friends with Data, and specified that La Forge should have “perfect diction and might even have a Jamaican accent” and instructed those agencies not to submit “any ‘street’ types”.

LeVar Burton auditioned for the role in 1986.4 He had previously appeared in Roots and other major network shows. He stated that “years ago I was doing a TV movie called Emergency Room and it was a fairly miserable experience. But there was a producer on that show, a man named Bob Justman…. six, seven years later, I get this call from Bob Justman and he’s working at Paramount on this new Star Trek series and he said I remember your love of the show, we’ve got this character, would you be interested in coming in and seeing us? And I said was franchise creator Gene Roddenberry involved? He said he is. And I said I’ll be right there.” Roddenberry was very pleased with Burton at his first audition.

Throughout the series, Burton was equipped with Geordi La Forge’s trademark VISOR, which he found extremely unpleasant to wear: “It’s pretty much a living hell… 85 to 90 per cent of my vision is taken away when the VISOR goes on… I bumped into everything the first season – Light stands, overhead microphones, cables at my feet – I tripped over it all… So it’s a sort of conundrum – the blind man, who puts on the VISOR and sees much more than everyone else around him, when the actor actually does that he’s turned into a blind person.

Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr. (born February 16, 1957), professionally known as LeVar Burton, is a German-born American actor, presenter, director, producer, and author.

Burton is best known for his roles as the young Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots, Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and as the host and executive producer of the long-running PBS children’s series Reading Rainbow. He is also known for directing the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House, starring Katey Sagal.

Frame is shrinkwrapped until time of purchase. Ships boxed with packing peanuts.

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