Steven H. Scheuer

Steven Henry Scheuer (January 9, 1926 – May 31, 2014) was a film and television historian and critic. He edited Movies on TV published between 1958 and 1993 and wrote The Movie Book, subtitled A Comprehensive, Authoritative, Omnibus Volume on Motion Pictures and the Cinema World. He was moderator of the syndicated television series All About TV from 1969 to 1990. In 2002, he hosted and produced a 13-program series for public television, Television in America: An Autobiography.

Life Scheuer was born in New York City in 1926. His brothers were 13-term New York Congressman James H. Scheuer; Walter Scheuer, an investor and film producer; and Richard Scheuer, a scholar and philanthropist. He also had a sister, Amy Scheuer Cohen. He graduated from Fieldston School and went to Yale University where he graduated in 1948. In 1950, Scheuer joined CBS as an assistant director and worked on such shows as Studio One and The Fred Waring Show. Seventeen editions of the book were published until 1993.

Scheuer died on May 31, 2014, in New York of congestive heart failure. His wife when he died was author and feminist social critic Alida Brill.

The Movies on TV series Movies on TV, first published in 1958 under the title TV Movie Almanac & Rating, was the first guide of its kind. It contained capsule reviews and ratings of movies using a four star rating system. By the release of Leonard Maltin's similarly titled TV Movies in September 1969 (later rebranded Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide), there had been five editions of Scheuer's book under four different names. At that time it contained 7,000 films compared to 8,000 in Maltin's TV Movies. It wasn't until the eighth edition (1978–79) that Scheuer started to include the movie's director and expanded the short synopses. It was renamed Movies on TV and Videocassette in 1989. Scheuer's book differed from Maltin's in that it featured a greater number of made-for-television productions, including aired television pilots that Maltin's book omitted.

Selected works Movies on TV (17 editions, 1958–1993) The Movie Book (1974). The Television Annual 1978-79 (1979). Movie Blockbusters (ghostwritten by Jim Beaver (1982, revised 1983) Who's Who in Television and Cable (1983). Box Office Champions: The Biggest Movie Blockbusters of All Time (1984) The Complete Guide to Videocassette Movies (1987). The Pocket Guide to Collecting Movies on DVD (2003) (by Steven Scheuer and Alida Brill-Scheuer).