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….'"
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
After the third season of "Dobie Gillis", Rod Amateau and Max Shulman produced a pilot for a "Zelda" spinoff starring Sheila James as Zelda Gilroy, with Joe Flynn and Jean Byron cast as her parents. However, CBS president James Aubrey lingered over moving forward with the "Zelda" series for a long time before firmly rejecting the series, with Amateau telling James in private that Aubrey had found "Zelda" (and by extension James, then a closeted lesbian) "too butch". James' contract for the pilot and the resulting waiting period caused her to be absent from much of the fourth and final season of "Dobie Gillis", though Amateau was able to hire her to return as Zelda for four episodes towards the end of the season. Acting roles became sparse for James by the late 1960s; she went into law and politics under her birth name of Sheila Kuehl and later became the first openly gay person elected to the California State Legislature.