Twenty-year-old LeVar Burton followed up his spectacular television debut in Roots with the made-for-TV film Billy: Portrait of a Street Kid. As can be gathered by the title, Billy (Burton) is a ghetto youth with little chance for a bright future. He gets his chance to escape his dead-end existence when he's hired as an assistant to veterinarian Ossie Davis. Roxie Roker of The Jeffersons fame (and the mother of pop singer Lenny Kravitz) co-stars as Billy's worn-out mom. Based on a novel by Robert C. S. Downs, Billy Portrait of a Street Kid first aired September 12, 1977.