Sheila Kuehl
When Kuehl was elected as a Democrat to the California Assembly in 1994 a Republican majority was seated for the first time in 20 years. This was due largely as an out-flowing of the enthusiasm stoked up by Newt Gingrich's strategy supporting Republicans for the Federal Legislature. Kuehl recalled "The Republican majority was quite a different kind of Republican, not a moderate, not a Rockefeller Republican. They were primarily Bible-thumpers and very right-wing. So it was not the most welcoming Republican group, though they loved Zelda Gilroy, and it was very difficult for them because they already liked me so much…. And to their surprise, we all got along very well. ...The Republicans were pretty horrible about LGBT stuff. They all virtually said stuff like, 'Well, they're all spawn of the devil, oh, but not you, Sheila….'"
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."