Sheila Kuehl
Kuehl was elected to the California State Assembly in 1994, becoming the first openly gay person elected to the California legislature. While running for office Kuehl found she was able to offset some negative stereotypes people had about lesbians thanks to their familiarity with her role as Zelda. She told an interviewer "When people know gay people personally, they tend to feel differently about the whole community. And all of a sudden, here's a person that they knew very well that they found out was lesbian."
Sheila Kuehl
Reflecting on the lasting impact of her role as Zelda, Kuehl told an interviewer "First, there were no smart girls on television, period. All the girls were better looking than me, but dumb. I didn't mean the actresses were dumb, but that was sort of what you had to be in those days. So, a smart girl, brash, did not know she was a loser, which was sort of the theme for all the characters on "Dobie Gillis"…you just keep doing what you are doing because you don't know there's anything wrong with you. And the other thing, of course, 20 years later I started getting letters from young women saying 'You were such a role model for me,' and now that the women's movement had started I could see why. An independent, smart girl, knew what she wanted, went after it, but not in a mean way. And always by the end of the show if you were doing anything dishonest against your friends, you would repent. Because friendship was always the most important thing."