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
Kuehl was able to make television guest appearances on "National Velvet", "McHale's Navy", "The Donna Reed Show", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Petticoat Junction", "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet", "Marcus Welby, M.D." and "The Ed Sullivan Show" from 1963 to 1970. By the end of the decade, acting roles had dried up for her. Though Kuehl "can't state with certainty that she was blacklisted" from further acting jobs over her sexuality, she claims that afterwards, "with few exceptions, the phone stopped ringing." A pilot for a "Dobie Gillis" spin-off, in which the character Zelda was the lead, was produced, but the president of CBS, Jim Aubrey, thought Kuehl was "too butch" to be a star for their network. Subsequently the pilot was not promoted and did not sell, but Kuehl was not told about this immediately. Rather, she was informed by the director, Rod Amateau, when she arrived to shoot the following episodes. She was devastated by the news.